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“Mrs. Harding, with the startled face of Gabrielle peering 
over her shoulder, stood in the doorway.’* 


POMP AND 
CIRCUMSTANCE 


BY 


DOROTHEA GERARD 


(Madame Longard de Longgarde) 


AUTHOR OF “the THREE ESSENTIALS,” “tHE COMPROMISE,” ETC. 



NEW YORK 

B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 

1908 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT 24 1908 

Ccpyricnt tntry 

o«i.\e,wos 

CLASS ' XXc. No. 


Copyright, 1908, by 
B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 
New York 



CONTENTS 

PART I 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. In the Ball-Room i 

II. During the Ball 14 

III. After the Ball 24 


PART II 

I. Upon the Shelf 42 

II. Antigone 59 

III. The Pupil 78 

IV. Mr. Heketes 90 

V. “Clean Wine” 108 

VI. The “Murricle” 127 

VII. The “Outing” 141 

VIII. Bob Rendall 162 


V 


VI 


CONTENTS 


PART III 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. “Cerberus” Goes A-Wooing 183 

II. The “Show” i 99 

III. In the Heart of the Fog 214 

IV. The Surrender 235 

V. The “Boudoir Herald” 249 

VI. “Igen or Nem?” 261 

VII. The Verdict 275 

VIII. The Summons 286 

IX. Two Sphinxes 300 

X. The Appeal 315 

XI. The Promise 330 

XII. “Igen” 342 

Epilogue 358 


Pomp and Circumstance 

PART I 


CHAPTER I 

IN THE BALL-ROOM 

*‘Frau Harding does this sort of thing very 
well, don’t you think?” 

*^Mrs. Harding, you should say, if you care 
about staying in her good graces. She considers 
that the English flavour gives a prestige^ you 
know.” 

“Ah, to be sure ! Well, Frau or Mrs., she un- 
derstands a hostess’s business. Floor, food, flow- 
ers, and fiddles about as good as I have seen them 
anywhere this Carnival. The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ must 
be doing famous business.” 

“It would need to,” came the retort, together 
with the dry chuckle of the critic — “always 
granted that to-night’s bills are cashed. I put 
down the evening” — and through her gold-rimmed 
lorgnon the speaker swept the eye of a connoisseur 


2 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


round the room — “I put down the evening at not 
a kreutzer under a thousand florins.” 

“H— m!” 

The second speaker in the dialogue collapsed 
into a pause, presumably filled with arithmetical 
calculations. 

The scene upon which the two stout, middle- 
aged, much frizzled and much bejewelled matrons 
gazed was, nevertheless, worthy of other mental 
operations than addition and multiplication. For 
Vienna is the city not only of fair faces, lithe 
figures and a feminine taste in dress which has 
awakened Paris herself tO' the need of looking to 
her laurels — it is, above all, the city of perfect 
dancers — a fact which goes far towards reconcil- 
ing the mere looker-on to his or her fate. The 
pulse of even the sleepiest of chaperons could not 
fail to be at moments stirred by this whirl of 
young forms, so erect, so elastic, so refreshingly 
unconscious; for that standing dilemma of the 
average British cub — where and how to bestow 
his arms and legs with the minimum of personal 
embarrassment — is non-existent for his Austrian 
prototype. Add to this that he is. musical to his 
finger-tips. The strains of the* Strauss waltz, 
floating through a screen of hothouse flowers, were 
acting as directly upon the nerves of these young 
men and women as did the scent of the flowers 
themselves. The result, besides the harmony of 
movement, lay in many a blissful smile, in many 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 3 

a frankly enchanted gaze; for the Austrian, even 
with money in his pocket, has not yet learnt to be 
ashamed of enjoying himself. 

That most of those present had money in their 
pockets was proclaimed by the size and water of 
the diamonds in the room — usually displayed 
upon fat necks — as well as by the look of the 
women’s gowns, of which the overwhelming ma- 
jority — even at this fag-end of the Carnival — 
were obviously at their first night. Among the 
men black coats predominated — a circumstance 
which, taken in conjunction with the millinery and 
the jewels, as well as of an occasional unmistakably 
Semitic profile among the* prosperous-looking men 
in the card-room, would, for a Viennese eye, have 
sufficed to label the gathering as one of the haute 
finance. Eminently a civilian affair. What uni- 
forms were there had been mostly brought to the 
matrimonial market, and were being temptingly 
displayed before the eyes of heiresses. 

“Yes — I daresay that’s* about the figure,” re- 
marked the* last speaker, after that pause. “It 
couldn’t well be done* under a thousand. She’s 
going it strong this season. After all, when you 
have daughters* to marry ” 

She brought back her eyes from, the brilliant 
scene to her neighbour’s hard, brick-red face. Her 
own wideband jovial countenance, upon* which the 
rice-powder showed as* plainly as the flour on an 
unbaked pudding, visibly expanded, while the two 


4 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

small black eyes, which might have been two iso^ 
lated currants half-buried in the dough, twinkled 
with enjoyment^ — for this branch of the subject 
promised good sport. 

“As though she hadn’t been doing it for years 
past, while both the girls were in the school- 
room !” openly sneered the brick-red lady. Upon 
which she abruptly softened and graciously con- 
ceded : 

“Small blame to her either for not living be- 
hind a screen. She’s quite worth looking at yet.” 

“Not with Irma beside her,” gently corrected 
her companion. “Don’t you think that girl has 
wonderfully improved of late?” 

“I don’t think she comes near to her mother.” 

“Oh, don’t you?” 

The jovial lady leant back, fanning herself 
slowly and immensely enjoying herself. That 
question of' daughters to marry, which by a child- 
less woman could be viewed with perfect detach- 
ment, was, as she well knew, a delicatef point with 
her neighbour. 

“The mother is more showy, if you like; but, 
to my mind, the daughter beats her entirely. Just 
look at her eyes!” 

“Just look at the mother’s figure!” 

“That grace of movement!” 

“That stateliness of stature!” 

For a minute or two the rival claims of mother 
and daughter flamed over two eager pairs of lips. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 5 

A casual listener might have supposed that Mrs. 
Harding was the Idol of the brick-red lady’s 
heart, whereas In reality she was precious to her 
only as an extinguisher to Irma’s more Incon- 
venient charms; just as her pudding-faced com- 
panion was using Irma herself solely as a pin 
wherewith to prod this mother of plain-faced 
daughters, just for the fun of the* thing — unless, 
possibly the grudge against Fate for not having 
given her daughters of her own had anything to 
do with It. 

The climax came with the remark: 

“Well, anyway, a good, majority of the men 
seem to be of my opinion — Baron KIraly among 
others. This Is the second cotillon he has danced 
with her this week.” 

The complexion alongside turned more dis- 
tinctly apoplectic, while with the heaving of the 
ample bosom the diamond riviere seemed to spit 
fire. For Baron KIraly was a 'parti^ and at the 
outset of the Carnival there had been signs 

Her neighbour, remembering the excellence of 
the dinners given by the wearer of the riviere, 
took fright. Baron KIraly was the biggest of the 
pins she had run Into her victim’s flesh to-night. 
Perhaps It was time to apply balm to the puncture. 
The sight of a falr-halred, angular-looking girl 
across the room determined the form which that 
balm was to take. It was somewhat hastily that 
she said: 


6 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“But the younger one is nothing to speaK of. 
Looks more bony than ever, now that they have 
put her into long frocks. Quite the English strain 
— and the wrong strain too, for the father is said 
to have been a fine man in his day. What has 
become of him to-night, by-the^by? Queer he 
shouldn’t be here to do the honours of his own 
house.” 

“Very queer! Some talk of an extra press of 
business. But business isn’t usually done at this 
hour of night. Extraordinary idea to leave one’s 
wife unsupported on such an occasion as this.” 

“She doesn’t seem to mind it much, does she?” 

Just at that moment the floor automatically 
cleared, for the music had paused. Both pairs of 
eyes turned towards the figure in the opposite 
doorway. Mrs. Harding stood with slightly in- 
clined head, listening to some suggestion of the 
cotillon leader, touching the next figure. Even 
had her comparative isolation not marked her out, 
she would probably have remained the most con- 
spicuous figure in the room; and this not only be- 
cause of her commanding stature and imposing 
bust, but also because of a certain brilliancy of 
appearance which caught the eye as unavoidably 
as does the glitter of a spangle. It was through 
the richness of its colouring, its strongly contrasted 
and strongly accentuated tints, that her irregular 
face agreeably surprised the spectator. The red 
on cheeks and lips was pure carmine, the brown 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 7 

eyes full of golden lights, showing even in the 
whites a gleam as of mother-o’-pearl, to which 
the whiteness of the teeth flashed response; the 
dark eyebrows as sharply pencilled as though they 
were painted, the black hair lustrous as satin. The 
ample shoulders, generously displayed, rose mas- 
sive as marble, and almost as dazzling, above the 
black velvet of the gown, its sombreness relieved 
only by one huge cluster of yellow roses. Mrs. 
Harding never made the mistake of dressing be- 
low her age, and had wisely renounced round 
dances years ago, well aware of the perils which, 
to complexions over forty, lurk in violent move- 
ment. 

A fresh paroxysm of admiration came over the 
brick-red lady. 

“It’s no wonder, surely, if she has got him un- 
der her thumb! They say he is quite silly about 
her still. He’d be sillier yet if he saw her in that 
gown I” 

She spoke truer than she knew. While the 
words were on her lips a man, who had let himself 
into the flat with a latchkey, was standing in a 
back passage, beside a door barely ajar. Through 
the narrow gap a section of the brilliantly lighted 
room was visible. The man — a middle-aged per- 
son, wearing an overcoat — stood rigid and unob- 
served for about a minute at his post, and during 
that minute his eyes never moved from the figure 
in black velvet. Had any one of the laughing, 


8 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


chattering women caught sight of the apparition 
in the door-chink it is probable that she would 
have instinctively shrieked, in recognition of the 
skeleton at the feast; for what could this face of 
despair be seeking among all these mirthful coun- 
tenances ? 

But public attention was otherwise occupied, 
which was why the man in the overcoat was able 
to pass unnoticed and unsuspected down the pas- 
sage and to a room beyond. 

“The toy-shop figure I” ejaculated the mother 
of daughters, as the music once more struck up. 
“Why, that in itself is an affair of fifty florins!’* 

“Only one more week of Carnival!” eloquently 
sighed Baron Kiraly, his black eyes no less elo- 
quently fixed upon his partner’s face. 

Irma Harding laughed, dandling, meanwhile, 
upon her knee the penny doll which had fallen to 
her share in the toy-shop figure. “You’re mis- 
taken there, Baron! I mean to have ten years of 
Carnival yet, whatever the calendar may say. I 
don’t intend to begin strewing the ashes till I’m 
twenty-eight. Don’t you think that will be time 
enough?” 

“I think that will be just twenty years too soon. 
You pretend to be eighteen now, but I don’t be^ 
lieve it. Nobody over eight, at most, could handle 
a doll as you’re doing this one. Tell me the truth, 
Fraulein Irma, you do play with them still, behind 
closed doors, don’t you?” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 9 

“Oh, if that’s the way to tell ages, then you 
must be over a hundred, at least ; for you evidently 
haven’t a notion what to do with your air-gun.” 

“If it was a real gun I’d know in a moment 
what to do with it.” 

“Frighten the old ladies?” 

“No, soften the hearts of the young ones — of 
one young lady at least, by dying at her cruel 
feet.” 

Irma made a little grimace, still dandling her 
doll. 

“Don’t you know that blood-stains are ruin to 
a white dress?” 

An hour later the cotillon had reached its final 
phase. Breathless men, their hands full of ex- 
quisite bunches of hyacinths and tea-roses, provided 
by Mrs. Harding’s munificence^ — and estimated by 
the brick-red calculator at a florin apiece — were 
hurrying across the floor, seeking out the ladies 
of their choice. This was the moment which irrev- 
ocably crowned the queen of the ball. In order 
to assign the sceptre of the evening to its rightful 
owner there was nothing to do but count the bou- 
quets, as a red-skin might count his scalps. To- 
night calculation seemed superfluous. The mound 
of flowers steadily growing upon the seat upon 
which Irma Harding found no moment for repose 
settled the great question at a glance. As daugh- 
ter of the house it could not well be otherwise^ — 


lo POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


so urged various young ladies with smaller collec- 
tions of bouquets and longer breathing spaces be- 
tween the waltz tunes. Yet even they were bit- 
terly aware that this exceptional position was but 
one factor in her triumph of the evening, for Irma, 
while less brilliant, or, at any rate, less conspicu- 
ous, was unquestionably more beautiful than her 
mother. That somewhat overdone colouring, 
those violent contrasts, were here toned down by 
just that degree which makes for charmirather than 
for mere effect. The shades of the hair were less 
intense, the rose of the cheeks less vivid, while in 
the more delicate oval of the face a pair of thickly 
fringed eyes shone so darkly that only at close quar- 
ters did the enchanted spectator discover them to 
be blue and not black. The dash of blue was the 
one hint she had taken from her Anglo-Saxon fore- 
fathers. In all else, in the delicacy of hands and 
feet, in the elasticity of form and ease of carriage, 
she belonged, physically, at least, to her mother’s 
nation. 

As now she passed from one arm to the other, 
Irma was visibly drinking her triumph in full 
draughts. The music, the lights, the admiration 
in the men’s eyes, no less than the envy in the 
women’s, all were ingredients in her cup of enjoy- 
ment. Earlier in the evening there had been a 
disturbing flavour in the cup, or, rather, there had 
been one ingredient wanting — the approving gaze 
of her father. Where was he? Why had he not 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE ii 

kept his promise of admiring her new frock? Al- 
ways that stupid business! Evidently he worked 
too hard. He had been looking so worried lately; 
but, then, he always looked worried. Twice in 
the course of the evening she had escaped from 
the ball-room to look into his private room, only 
to find it empty. Why was he not returned from 
the bank ? Surely he was not taken ill ? 

“Not a bit of it,’* was Mrs. Harding’s serene 
reply when, in a fit of anxiety, Irma questioned 
her. “He’ll be answering business letters in his 
office. So like him to put off things till these im- 
possible hours. Just look after the guests, Irma, 
and don’t trouble about your father. You know 
he always shirks when he possibly can.” 

But this had been hours ago. Since then every 
twinge of anxiety had gone down in the whirlpool 
of enjoyment; for care for the guests did not nec- 
essarily imply neglect of oneself. That the big- 
gest parti in the room should, very obviously, be 
basking in the light of her smiles, could not but 
heighten intoxication. Not that Baron Kiraly’s 
bold black eyes had done the smallest damage to 
her heart, or that she had any intention whatever 
of parting with her liberty in his favour, but sim- 
ply that he represented for her the first handy ob- 
ject on which to try her woman’s powers. Though 
she might not want him for herself, it was amusing 
to keep him from the others. That imp of co- 
quetry which slumbers in all but a few exceptional 


12 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

women’s hearts flourished unavoidably in the too 
congenial surroundings. The same thing was go- 
ing on on all sides. Having tried her hand at the 
game, and finding that she could play it at least as 
well as any other, it was not in human nature to 
desist. Let the ten years’ carnival she promised 
herself last but two, and the unspoiled girl’s heart 
would have become as light, possibly as damaged 
a ware, as any that beat beneath these many-col- 
cured gowns; for we are but the product of our 
circumstances (so we are told), and in Vanity Fair 
virtue, pure and simple, is not marketable. If there 
was anything in Irma Harding beyond gaiety, vi- 
vacity and an unlimited capacity for enjoyment, it 
ran fair risk of missing its way upon the primrose 
path she had hitherto trod, and which she hoped 
to continue treading. For how much longer? It 
was a question which she had never so much as 
put to herself — least of all thought of putting to 
herself to-night — to-night, with the ordeal so close 
already and so cruel ! Under the brilliancy of the 
electric light how should she have discerned the 
shadow already fallen upon the future? — how, 
through the strains of the dance-music, have dis- 
tinguished the footfall of approaching Fate? 

“You will be on the ice to-morrow, or rather to- 
day — will you not, Fraulein Irma?” asked the am- 
orous Baron, as the last, long-drawn note of the 
fiddlers died out among a whirl of skirts. 

“That depends upon how much my feet hurt 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


13 


me!” And the Queen of the Ball sank down 
breathless beside her mound of flowers, to rise 
again within the same minute at her mother’s sig- 
nal and do her part In the speeding of the parting 
guests. 

Half an hour later Mrs. Harding looked round 
the abandoned room with the satisfied eye of a vic- 
torious general upon a vacated battlefield. Like a 
battlefield, too, the shining parquet was strewn 
with remains, though only of ribbons and faded 
flowers, which one of the hired waiters — uncon- 
scious representative of the Inevitable “hyena” — 
was already beginning to collect. 

“I think It has been a success 1” the hostess pro- 
nounced. 

Just then the clock of a neighbouring church 
struck clear through the frosty air. 

“Four o’clock!” 

Irma began to stretch her stiff arms above her 
head; then, at a sudden recollection, dropped them 
again. 

“And papa? What has become of him? It’s 
Impossible he shouldn’t be home yet!” 


CHAPTER II 


DURING THE BALL 

In a room at the end of the passage, to which 
the highest tones of the fiddles penetrated, shrill 
and yet faint, Edward Harding sat with his elbows 
upon the writing-table and his head between his 
hands. Beside him there lay a small steel revolver, 
which, after having locked the door and switched 
on the electric light, he had taken from the back 
of a drawer. He had not thought of removing 
his overcoat. For what he had to do it did not 
seem worth while; or perhaps the temperature of 
the room made its thickness welcome, for in the 
absorption of the evening’s festivities the stove 
in here had very naturally been neglected. 

The master of the house in which so brilliant an 
entertainment was taking place was a man of some 
fifty-odd years, tall, fleshless, with, in his some- 
what narrow shoulders, that slight stoop which al- 
ways betrays desk-work, fair hair much bleached 
already and very thin about the temples, and a 
haggard, over-mobile face, upon which the fine net- 
work of creases was ceaselessly playing into new 
14 


V 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 15 

patterns. The mouth, seldom at rest for more than 
a few moments at a time, completed the disquieting 
effect of the face ; while upon the whole man there 
hung that undefinably “hunted’* look which pro- 
claims a set of ruined nerves. 

Presently he dropped his hands and drew to- 
wards him a sheet of paper. With the dance-music 
in his ears and the revolver lying close to his hand, 
he began to write precipitately. 

“Isabella — ^my Queen, my one and only Love,” 
— (it was characteristic of the woman he was wri- 
ting to, that no one, not even her own husband, had 
ever attempted to curtail the name into either “Isa” 
or “Bella”) — “I have just looked upon you — for 
the last time. Never have you appeared to me more 
beautiful. It is difficult to die with my eyes still 
full of that image, and yet it is more impossible to 
live. This is my confession. When you have read 
it you will understand — ^but will you forgive ? Isa- 
bella, I am too weak to face ruin and disgrace, and 
that is what awaits us all — through my fault. It 
can only be my fault for not having succeeded. In 
the race of Life there is no mercy for those who 
fall by the way, and I have fallen. 

“The details cannot matter. You never had 
patience for business affairs, my darling, so I will 
not weary you. But this you must know: seeing 
myself at the end of our own resources, and with 
the many bills pressing, I allowed myself to be 


i6 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


tempted into using some of the sums deposited in 
my hands. In the hope of retrieving our fortunes 
I speculated with them — and there was reason for 
this hope. God knows I acted in the firm belief 
of harming no one. But Fate decided against me. 
The money is gone — ^much more than the original 
sum; discovery is unavoidable before another twelve 
hours are past ; and discovery means not ruin alone, 
but an ignominious exposure — and prison. That 
is why the revolver is now lying ready. Evidently 
I have no vocation for a criminal. The mere 
shame of the arrest would have killed me. It is 
easier to die by my own hand. After the hard 
fight of the last years — of the last months, in es- 
pecial — that little steel instrument blinks at me 
almost like the eye of a friend. It promises rest, 
if nothing else. 

“But, my love, my beautiful mistress, do not 
suppose that because I talk of a hard fight there 
is a single thought of reproach in my mind. It 
is myself only that I blame. If we have lived 
beyond our means it was only because I was too 
cowardly to admit to you our true position. Nor 
could I have borne to see my Queen in mean sur- 
roundings — not seated upon the throne which is 
her due. I cannot bear to see it now. I prefer 
to go. If I was not able to build up that throne 
I had no right to claim you. I am but paying the 
penalty of my presumption. 

“But you? My one consolation in this final mo- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 17 

ment is the thought of your own small fortune. 
That will at least stave off misery; and the girls, 
of course, will have to work. My last prayer is 
that they prove a comfort to you. Dare I add 
to it the hope of forgiveness? When I think of 
what your life might have been without me, I can 
only ask you to think of me as leniently as you 
can. Do not let my end blacken your life. They 
are not black thoughts that fill my mind as I look 
into the past — they are golden thoughts. The hap- 
piness I enjoyed in gaining you is more than comes 
to the lives of most men. Even on the edge of 
the grave I still feel the glow of it upon me, and 
from the bottom of my heart I thank you for those 
moments of perfect bliss ! 

“Your unhappy and devoted 

“Edward.'^ 

With the last word he threw down the pen and 
once more took his head between his hands. Be- 
neath the electric light the steel handle of the re- 
volver flashed aggressively. There was nothing 
remaining to do now but to grasp it; but with the 
accomplishment of his confession the extreme need 
of hurry was past. A respite of a few minutes 
could alter nothing — just time enough for another 
mental look at that figure seen in the doorway, to 
take with him as a last draught of life into the 
shadows of death. Had he ever seen her more 
beautiful? Yes — once^ perhaps, on that evening, 


1 8 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


twenty years ago, when, in a box of the Vienna 
Opera House, she had first dawned upon his sight. 
That time it had been a white and spotless vision — 
the roses in her cheeks the only flowers that decked 
her; her brilliant eyes, her girlish grace, the only 
jewels that adorned. From the moment that his 
gaze had fallen upon her the events upon the stage 
no longer enjoyed his attention. Steadily, through- 
out the three acts, his eyes returned to that box in 
the first row, which for him contained all the 
beauty of the packed house. The coup de foudre 
in its most literal sense, and enduring, as lightning 
flashes are not in the habit of enduring. Looking 
back at it across the gulf of twenty years, and with 
those penetrating fiddle notes pricking into his con- 
sciousness like SO' many fine needles, he could still 
feel the thrill of it in his veins. 

From that moment onward, and even before an 
introduction was obtained, he had been her slave. 
It was on that evening that he had discovered the 
real meaning of life. 

There followed six months filled by the fluctua- 
tions of hope and despair. Isabella Feldegg, a 
recognised beauty of the circle in which she moved, 
was surrounded by suitors, among whom he could 
not, either socially or financially, claim the first 
place. True, his position in the old-established 
Anglo-Saxon Bank, which for half a century had 
been doing good business on Austrian soil, was 
even then a good one, his future more than as- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 19 

sured. But among his rivals were men with hun- 
dreds of acres to a titled name. When his homage 
was finally accepted he could scarcely believe his 
good fortune. Isabella’s friends did not understand 
it at all; and a very few months after the mar- 
riage Isabella herself did not understand it, either. 
Over-susceptibility of the heart was by no means 
her weak point; but she had Hungarian blood in 
her veins, and Hungarian fancies are inflammable. 
The tall, fair-haired Englishman, with the regular 
features and the blue eyes — so' different from her 
swarthy countrymen — had worked by contrast 
upon her imagination. His evident ardour had 
ended by carrying her off her feet — for a time. 
That time had sufficed to fill his cup of bliss — and 
to seal his fate; for Edward Harding was one of 
those men who are born to live neither for riches, 
fame, nor adventure, nor even for Woman in the 
abstract, but only for one individual woman. Some- 
times men of this especial category fail to meet 
the exact woman who holds the key of their souls. 
In that case they walk through life desolately, even 
in the midst of what looks like success, vaguely 
aware of not being upon the right road. You can 
run against them any day wandering up and down 
both the highways and byways of life. Sometimes 
again they meet her, and then they become either 
the most fortunate or the most unfortunate of men, 
according to the quality of their subjugator. But 
even in failure and betrayal and wretchedness they 


20 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

will die with the paradoxically satisfying feeling 
which comes with the consciousness of a destiny 
fulfilled. 

All Harding’s married life had been one long 
effort to procure to the expensive picture he had 
purchased the frame it deserved. And it was a 
very expensive picture, as he speedily discovered. 
Grown up as the spoilt child of her own family, 
Isabella had inevitably become the spoilt child of 
her especial circle. It was unthinkable that her 
position should in any way deteriorate. To slave 
for her pleasure had been the only pleasure Hard- 
ing had ever known since she had deigned to cross 
his threshold. 

That she should accept it all serenely, as no 
more than her due, could not chill him. Rather it 
fitted all the more perfectly into his conception of 
his “sovereign lady.” Thus, with this gracious 
condescension, should a queen take the offerings 
laid at her feet. And yet, in all but this, the man 
was no fool. Outside the field of his love he was 
able to judge and to observe, within it only able 
to worship. For the value of any bonds on the 
money market he had a keen eye — none for that of 
a woman. Even when she began to talk, half- 
playfully at first, of the partis she might have made 
had she chosen — and this she began to do soon 
after the honeymoon — his blindness was not cured. 
In time the remarks became less playful and more 
fretful, without enlightening him further. The 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 21 

rapture of finding himself the favoured one among 
so many had bred in him an ineradicable gratitude 
which not even she herself could destroy. Was it 
not enough that she should be faithful to him ? Oh, 
truly, he was blest beyond his deserts. 

Necessarily his attitude towards his daughters 
had suffered from the absorption of his dominating 
feeling. Though he had in him all the makings 
of a tender and affectionate father, they had been 
cramped by the passion of his life. You cannot do 
two things intensely; one of them is bound to suf- 
fer. The most selfless and disinterested of men, 
he had yet arrived at systematically disregarding 
the true interests of his children. For selflessness 
of this particular category often works like egoism 
towards all but the beloved object. Or perhaps 
it would be truer to say that it actually becomes a 
variety of egoism, since the object has grown into 
a second self. 

Of late the material strain had been intensify- 
ing. Even the directorship of the “Anglo-Saxon,” 
attained some years ago, no longer sufficed to fill 
the measure of his goddess’s requirements. With 
the growing up of two daughters it was but nat- 
ural that household wants should increase. Irma 
had to be brought out, and she should be brought 
out in a fashion worthy of such a mother. No 
petty jealousy of her daughter’s younger charms 
disturbed Mrs. Harding. To be a leader in her 
circle, to shine as a hostess, to see the invitations 


22 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

to her house scrambled for — such had been her 
dream, and in the attainment of it her own beauty 
was only one ingredient in many, since personal 
vanity did not happen to be her foible. She re- 
joiced quite frankly in Irma’s good looks, as offer- 
ing not only a better pretext for social display, 
but likewise as promising good things for the fu- 
ture. It was as though that social ambition which, 
in a moment of impulse, had been sacrificed to a 
passing sentiment, had drawn from the very defeat 
a more furious determination to assert its vitality. 

This Carnival had been the last straw in Hard- 
ing’s financial burden. To say “No” to Isabella 
when she asked him for money had seemed to him 
so impossible that even a breach of trust had be- 
come possible. Thus only was it explicable that a 
man compounded of honesty and of the most deli- 
cate sense of honour had become a defrauder and 
virtually a thief, with no other escape from shame 
than that which lay in the small, round ball of the 
loaded revolver. 

And now he took it up with a hand that was 
almost steady, for to be a moral coward is not nec- 
essarily to be a physical one. ‘ The dance-music had 
ceased. There had been sounds of closing doors 
and departing carriages. Four strokes of the clock; 
clearly the moment had come. 

He shut his eyes for one instant — gathering his 
resolve into one supreme effort — ^then opened them 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 23 

again, bending his head sideways towards the door. 
A step In the passage, and now a quick knock. 

For one moment he hesitated, with his finger on 
the trigger — was not his reckoning with life closed 
already? — then softly put down the wfeapon and, 
hastily throwing a sheet of paper over it, went to 
the door. It had come over him that perhaps, 
after all. Fate was about to grant him one more 
sight of the beloved face. It was a thought he 
could not resist. For that one moment he would 
be' able to command his features. 

Going to the door, he unlocked It, and, through 
the narrow chink, looked out with burning eyes. 
Immediately his restless under-lIp fell. 

“You, Irma?” was all he said. In a tone of flat 
disappointment. 


CHAPTER III 


AFTER THE BALL 

He had kept held of the door-handle, not mean- 
ing to admit even Isabella; but his reckoning had 
been made without the keenness of Irma’s young 
eyes or the impetuosity of her movements. Neither 
did he know what was written on his face. At the 
mere sight of it shapeless fear laid a cold hand upon 
the pulsing gaiety of a minute back. Pushing her 
way in, Irma faced him closely. 

“Papa — ^what is it? You are ill? I was sure 
you must be. Why did you not send for me? 
What is it, papa?” 

“Why should it be anything? I am busy, Irma. 
Run away to your bed, child*!” 

The miserable travesty of a smile could not de- 
ceive her. 

“Yes, it is something. If you are not ill, then 
it is something else. Why have you still got your 
overcoat on? Have you only just come in? Is it 
anything about the bank?” 

Her eyes went instinctively to the writing-table, 
and fell there upon the closely written sheet, which 

24 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 25 

in his perturbation he had even forgotten to fold 
together. Swiftly she moved in that direction, but 
he, guessing her intention, was before her. She 
saw another sheet pushed aside, caught the flash 
of electric light upon polished steel, and, even be- 
fore she had recognised the shape of the thing in 
her father’s hand, had sprung upon him. 

There was the struggle of a moment between 
the girl in the white ball-dress and the man in the 
overcoat. One shot went off, lodging a harmless 
ball in the midst of a bookcase, and immediately 
afterwards Irma hurled the revolver into a comer 
of the room, and, falling on to a chair, burst into 
passionate though uncomprehending tears. She 
knew that she had saved her father’s life, but she 
did not yet understand why she had had to do so. 

Harding, too, had sat down, silent and with 
shaking hands, making no effort to recover the still 
loaded weapon. The crisis of excitement which 
had made it seem possible to kill himself in his 
daughter’s presence was outstepped — a dull reac- 
tion close at hand. 

Then, before a word had been spoken, there was 
a step and a rustle of skirts, and Mrs. Harding, 
with the startled face of Gabrielle peering over her 
shoulder, stood in the doorway. 

“What is the matter? What has happened? 
Was not that a shot?” 

At the sight the unhappy man once more cov- 
ered his face. So this humiliation — the only one 


26 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

he really feared — ^was not to be spared him, after 
all! 

Yet, after a brief pause, he unexpectedly 
straightened himself and rose. Going to the writ- 
ing-table, he took from it the written sheet and 
handed it to his wife. 

“I wrote that for you, Isabella,” he said, with 
a final renunciation of all hope — even oi the hope 
of mercy — ^which was not without its miserable 
dignity. “Forgive me for still being alive when 
you read it. This at least is not my fault. Irma 
came in just one minute too soon.” 

Mrs. Harding, who, in view of the whispering 
servants at the end of the passage, had had the 
presence of mind to shut the door, took the sheet 
with a stare that was more o.f astonishment than 
of alarm. Once or twice in the dead pause* that 
followed the paper rustled in her hand, and that, 
beside the roll of a carriage in the street*, was all 
the sound — for Irma’s nervous sot)S had subsided. 
Harding had tiAned away, unable, to bear the sight 
of the change which he knew must come over his 
wife’s face. 

It came before she had read many lines — the 
sudden widening of the eyes, the rush of dark 
blood to the face. For a moment after she had 
reached the last word she stood there fixed as stiffly 
as the bodies of those struck by lightning are said 
occasionally to remain immobilised into the most 
unlikely attitudes. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 27 

When she spoke at last it was with a curious 
thickness of tone, into which the excitement had 
not yet fairly struggled. 

He began by only bowing his head. 

“Is this true?” 

Already the tone was rising and sharpening. 

“It is true — ^unhappily.” 

“We are ruined, and you are — a defrauder?” 

“Isabella,” he said, with bleached lips, “I have 
written the words; will you make me speak them 
as well?” 

“Answer me!” she commanded, her eyes, that 
were beginning to blaze, fastened hard upon his 
face. 

“We are ruined, and I have broken my trust.” 
He said the words dully, mechanically, though they 
represented to him the very dregs in the cup of 
expiation. 

For another moment she stood almost immova- 
ble, her mind struggling to t^ke in the enormity of 
the thing. During that moment the blaze in her 
eyes turned slowly to a glare. 

“Ruined — a defrauder — the end of all — ah, my 
God!” 

Between the short phrases the yellow rosps on 
her breast heaved tumultuously. “So this is the 
end of all!” 

And then, regardless of the two startled girls’ 
faces, the disappointment of a lifetime broke 
bounds. Beneath her superb exterior, behind her 


28 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

majestic presence, there had always lived one of 
those common souls who seek their first relief in 
words and in gestures. The very vitality of her 
personality made the words loud and the gestures 
emphatic; for she had in her the blood of a race 
in which the elementary passions never lie very 
far below the surface. If at this moment she did 
not sink to the level of the typical virago it was 
only because the habits of education cannot be un- 
learned at so short a notice. Within the space of 
a few minutes the grievances of twenty years were 
unpacked ; all that chronic grudge harboured 
against the man who, by crossing her path in her 
heedless youth, had robbed her of a more brilliant 
destiny, found utterance. So long^ as he was able to 
satisfy her wants he might be forgiven; but from 
the moment that he failed in the eyes of the world 
he was necessarily lost in hers. The sight of his 
despair, the depth of his self-humiliation, could not 
touch her, for the simple reason that she was not 
clearly aware of them. The fall from an hour 
ago — from five minutes ago — had been too rude 
to have let her as yet recover more than the con- 
sciousness of her own wrong. Had she seen him 
with the revolver in his hand, as Irma had seen 
him, it is probable that the sight would have ap- 
pealed to her nerves, at least, if not to her sensi- 
bility. But not having seen him so, she could see 
nothing but this personal wrong, which, in truth, 
was great, since not even love can condone cow- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 29 

ardice. Nor was any tenderness for the culprit 
there to disarm her. What she had ever felt for 
the man before her had been no more* than a flame 
upon a stone; and the flame, once burnt out, had 
left the stone unsoftened — at most, blackened by 
the ashes of the dead fire. 

While she spoke he listened, pale as death, 
steadying himself by the back of a chair, yet un- 
able to lower his eyes. In spite of all the shame 
of this bitterest of all moments. It was Impossible 
to renounce the sight of his accuser. The pas- 
sionate admiration carried the day over the crush- 
ing humiliation. So long as It was still granted 
him he would rest his eyes upon her. If her In- 
dignant glances killed him, so much the better; It 
was the death, of all others, he would have chosen. 
Even quivering beneath her reproaches, he could 
not but exult In her strength. Another woman 
would have broken down into hysterical tears, while 
she stood upright, pouring out her displeasure, as 
It became a queen to do. That It was a queenship 
that savoured more of the footlights than of the 
Court was a fact lost upon his lover’s eyes. No 
thought of self-defence so much as visited him. 

“I had no right to marry you, Isabella; I know 
it,” he murmured sadly when, exhausted by her 
own passion, she paused at last. Upon which she 
said the cruel word: 

“No — you had no right.” 

The girls, shocked and bewildered listeners, as 


30 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

completely ignored as though they had been empty 
air, were only just beginning to read the true sig- 
nificance of the scene. Gabrielle, with pale blue 
eyes widely opened, had instinctively retreated as 
though before some physical danger, and stood 
flattened against the wall, looking in the first long 
dress she had ever worn — a dress which still mer- 
cifully covered her immature neck and arms — like 
a child that is too frightened even to cry. Irma 
was not crying, either, now. From the floor she 
had picked up the paper which from her mother’s 
fingers had fluttered to her feet, and had bent her 
head over it. 

And then there happened one of those things 
which do not happen more than once in a lifetime 
— if they happen at all. What passed within her 
soul during the few minutes which she took to read 
her father’s confession does not come to every life. 
The anguish, the unarmed surrender of the words, 
seemed to reach down a hand, deep, deep down into 
an unsuspected abyss, to stir up things which she 
had never known to be there, to take hold of things 
which until then had not seemed to exist. It was 
one of those rapid and violent processes which, un- 
der the pressure of circumstances, sometimes, 
though rarely, effect what it takes years of normal 
life to reach, the sharp, painful birth of a woman’s 
soul within what has hitherto been the individuality 
of a child. What she read here, written by a hand 
which had visibly jerked, was a revelation so sud- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 31 

den and uncompromising as to be almost blind- 
ing. It all depended upon whether the eyes that 
beheld it were strong enough or not to bear the 
merciless glare. 

With the paper in her lap and her mother’s re- 
proaches ringing in her ears, she sat trying to re- 
view the case. She had always felt more leaning 
towards her father than her mother, perhaps be- 
cause she had understood that her mother did not 
need her, while her father possibly might. Be- 
hind Mrs. Harding’s regal indulgence she had di- 
vined a want of tenderness; but hitherto life had 
been too smooth and easy to let the lack of the true 
maternal accent become unpleasantly conspicuous. 
It was under the stress of this moment only that 
the latent impression became acute. As, with new 
eyes, she looked at the figure in black velvet, whose 
lips still moved and whose voice still rang out, she 
began to understand. And from there she looked 
towards her father — ^with new eyes, too, into which 
hot tears again rose suddenly. At thought of what 
the last minutes, the last hours — those hours spent 
by herself in laughing gaiety — must have been to 
him, an immense pity gripped her heart. Higher 
within her and higher were the two tides rising: 
the tide of pity on one side, of indignation on the 
other. And now, at another word of her mother’s, 
they overflowed. 

“My friends did what they could to prevent my 
marriage,” Mrs. Harding was bitterly saying, “and 


32 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

yet they did not know that I was to end as the wife 
of a criminal.’* 

It was then that Irma sprang to her feet. 

“Not a criminal! No, it is not he who is 
guilty!” 

With shining eyes she faced her mother. 

Mrs. Harding, from sheer surprise, was silent 
for a moment. To do her justice, she had com- 
pletely forgotten her daughter’s presence. Then 
she spoke haughtily: 

“You understand nothing of this, Irma. By 
the letter of the law defraudation is a crime. We 
are all lost.” 

“Oh, yes, I understand — far better than I ever 
did before, and I don’t care anything about the 
letter of the law. It is not papa who is the real 
culprit; it is we who are guilty; we have been 
amusing ourselves while he has been toiling and — 
plotting to get the money we needed.” 

“Irma!” 

The reproachful word came not from her 
mother, but from her father. It was with a sort of 
shocked surprise and a deprecating glance towards 
his wife that he greeted the advent of this un- 
looked-for defender. 

Slowly Mrs. Harding measured her daughter 
from head to foot. Was this, indeed, her daugh- 
ter? 

“Why use the plural?” she asked, with an icy 
coldness succeeding to the heat of a minute ago. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 33 

“Why not tell me to my face that It Is all my 
fault?” 

Irma’s lips moved Impulsively and then tightly 
closed. But though the words hovering there were 
not spoken, Mrs. Harding could read them plainly 
In her daughter’s unabashed eyes, and actually 
paled a little. To see a judge risen In her child 
was the last thing she had expected. 

“Ah — so this Is the gratitude I have earned for 
bringing you up as I have done, for giving you 
every social advantage In my power, for trying to 
secure your future ” 

“Don’t listen to her, Isabella ; she doesn’t know 
what she Is saying,” pleaded the poor bankrupt. 
But Mrs. Harding did not even look at him; all 
her attention was now for this most astonishing 
daughter of hers. 

“You had no right to bring us up as you have 
done, unless we had the money,” said Irma, un- 
shaken. In the virulence of her new-born indigna- 
tion there was no room even for just considerations. 

“And could I know that we had not the money, 
when your father persistently hid from me the true 
state of our fortunes?” 

The consciousness that the question sounded like 
an attempt at self-justification made the tone all 
the haughtier. 

“He did that only because he was too fond of 
you. You made it too difficult to him to speak 
the truth.” 


34 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Once more the blood surged to Mrs. Harding’s 
face. For a short space the ample figure in black 
velvet and the slight figure In white tulle, whose 
only ornament was the bunch of crushed and faded 
violets upon the breast, stood opposite to each 
other, eye In eye. 

“You are a fool, Irma,” broke out Mrs. Hard- 
ing, after that pause. “What makes you Interfere ? 
Has your father thanked you for coming in when 
you id?” 

“Perhaps you, too, think that I came In too 
soon?” asked Irma, with quivering nostrils. 

“Irma!” 

Mrs. Harding’s eyes shifted a little as she said 
the Indignant word. Was it perhaps because of 
the thought which might possibly be written in 
their depths^ — the almost unavoidable thought that 
a revolver-shot Is often a wonderfully simple solu- 
tion of Impossible-looking situations? 

Perhaps Irma had, after all, caught a glimmer 
of that thought, for some Impulse made her just 
then move to her father’s side, her hand upon his 
arm. 

“Papa I papa ! Ah, I am so glad I came In ! I 
want you to live. You belong to me now.” 

Across the room Mrs. Harding viewed them 
from under artificially lowered eyelids. 

“And what do you mean to do with him, now 
that he belongs to you?” 

“I mean to save him in spite of himself.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 35 

“By going to prison with him?” 

“No — I shall keep him out of prison. Tell me, 
papa,” and she looked up into his face, her brows 
knit in the effort of thought, “is there no chance 
of replacing the money which you have^ — used?” 

He shook his head vaguely. 

“Is the sum so large? But perhaps part of it — 
there is mamma’s fortune — ^would not that help 
at least to ” 

Mrs. Harding laughed harshly. 

“Really, Irma, you’re a greater fool than I took 
you for, as though it were not bad enough to have 
nothing but dry bread remaining tO' put into my 
mouth, but you seem to expect me to throw even 
that away ! The one mercy in the whole affair is 
that my money cannot be touched.” 

“No, no,” said Harding, hastily, “not that — it 
is not to be thought of. Besides, it would only be 
a drop in the bucket.” 

As Irma looked from one to the other the re^ 
vealing light burned brighter and brighter. 

“Then, of course, there is nothing for it but 
flight. We can hide. People often do. The world 
is big. We shall go away somewhere where they 
cannot find us.” 

repeated Mrs. Harding, sharply. 

“Yes, of course, we. Do you think I would let 
him go alone? I know how that would end.” 

“This is moonshine madness. You cannot mean 
to pass youir life in dodging the police?” 


36 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“I mean to pass it where papa is.” 

Mrs. Harding, speechless, contemplated her 
daughter. Perhaps because she had never before 
seen her in the grip of a deep emotion she had never 
quite realised how beautiful she was. It was a rec- 
ognition which added greatly to the exasperation 
of the moment. 

“You?” she broke out in a new fit of vehemence, 
to live out your life in a hole! But you don’t 
understand what you are doing, child 1 Don’t you 
see that by devoting yourself to this^ — this unfortu- 
nate man you are identifying yourself with his 
cause? Let him fly, by all means, but let him fly 
alone. Your accompanying him would be but a 
useless sacrifice. He cannot be so great an egoist 
as to demand it. It is your whole future, every 
chance you have in life, that is in play — and those 
chances are small enough now. Heaven knows 1 As 
the daughter of your father it is not likely you will 
ever find a husband; but by his side and espousing 
his cause you are certain not to. Think, Irma, 
think before you commit this folly!” 

Her rich voice vibrated with sincerity, and with 
what, for the moment, was true feeling. That which 
Irma proposed to surrender was in her eyes too 
precious not to arouse the mother in her. 

For all answer Irma shook her head, and, draw- 
ing a little closer to her father, clasped her second 
hand around his arm. He had not spoken for sev- 
eral minutes, while his dazed eyes went from one 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 37 

face to the other. They came back to Irma now, 
with an astonished gratitude beginning to dawn in 
their blankness. After the first shock, almost of 
displeasure, he was coming to realise that, after all, 
he did not stand quite alone, quite abandoned. As 
Irma felt his fingers stealing round hers with a fur- 
tive, clinging movement she was aware of a new 
glow, the strongest and purest emotion that had 
yet come to her life. It made her feel able for 
anything. 

“Choose I” said Mrs. Harding, in a thinly veiled 
fury. “Choose between him and me!” 

“I have chosen already. I will never let him 
go alone. It would be the same as putting back 
the revolver into his hand.” 

Mrs. Harding gazed for a moment longer at 
her daughter, and during that moment all those 
hopes which had been built upon the girl’s beauty 
seemed to pass before her mind’s eye, as in a mock- 
ing procession. What wonder that the pallor of 
rage should slowly overspread her face? 

“Then you had better be quick about it,” she 
said at last, with a final touch of brutality, “or else 
the police may be upon us.” 

“Yes — ^we shall be quick.” 

Irma laid her hand over her eyes, as though to 
clear her thoughts. 

The next question was a sneer. 

“And where do you mean to hide, if I may ask?” 

“I don’t know. In America, I suppose. Papa” 


38 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

— and dropping her hand from his arm, she took 
hold of both his, pressing them hard together — 
“only pack your things, and leave the rest tO' me. 
You have a new time-table, have you not?” 

She spoke in a quick tone of business-like de- 
cision, come to her on the spur of the moment, and 
already she was by the writing-table with the time- 
table in her hand. 

“It had better be Hamburg,” she pronounced 
after a minute, during which the other members of 
the family — not excluding her mother — had stood 
looking at her in helpless silence. “Once there we 
can decide where to sail for. There is an express 
for Berlin at 7 :20 — it is not yet five now. Can 
you be ready to start by half-past six, papa? I 
shall change my dress, and Gabrielle will help me to 
pack. But” — her forehead went into a perplexed 
fold — ^“we need money, of course. Have you any 
at all?” 

Harding signified mechanically that he had. 

“That is well. And I will take what jewels I 
have. They may be useful. Now lose no time, 
papa, and I will lose none.” 

She turned to the door; then, remembering some- 
thing, turned back and walked deliberately to the 
corner of the room into which she had flung the 
revolver. Picking it up, she went straight past her 
mother with the weapon in her hand. 

When, a few minutes later, with a dressing-gown 
wrapped around her, and her white ball-dress mak- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 39 

ing an untidy heap upon the bed, she was busy be- 
tween an open trunk and many open drawers, 
Gabrielle’s scared face appeared in the doorway, 

“May I come in, Irma?’* 

“Of course you may. IVe been waiting for you. 
There, just take out all the stockings in this drawer, 
and see how many you can pack into' the corners of 
this tray.” 

Gabrielle slipped In ; but it was not to look out 
the stockings — it was to throw her thin arms 
around her sister’s neck and burst into tears. 

“Ah, Irma, I can’t believe it! It is all too hor- 
rible! And are you really, really going away?” 

Irma kissed her, a trifle impatiently, as she dis- 
engaged herself from the clinging embrace. 

“Yes, I am going; I have to go. But this does 
not make It easier for me, Gabrielle.” 

“But after you have taken him away could you 
not come back again?” 

“Impossible! He needs me. He has nobody else; 
not even you. It seems. Do you, too, think him the 
only guilty person ?” 

Before the defiant flash of the eyes with which 
her sister turned upon her Gabrielle visibly shrunk ; 
for she, too, had by this time grasped the chief facts 
of the family debacle, and, not being absolutely a 
fool, had drawn some conclusions. Her sharp, un- 
finished face, which was not without a sort of in- 
significant prettiness, became visibly disturbed. 


40 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“No; poor papa! I do not want to blame him. 
It must have been very difficult for him.” 

“And it was mamma who made it difficult. You 
must see that now, as well as I,” said Irma, fever- 
ishly collecting handkerchiefs the while. 

“I — I suppose so.” 

“Then why did you not stand by him now, in the 
studv? Why did you not say one word in his de- 
fence?” 

Gabrielle’s washed-out-looking eyes shifted un- 
easily about the room. 

“It wouldn’t have done any good to speak. It 
would only have made mamma angrier. Y ou made 
her angry enough already.” 

“You can’t mean, to say that you blame me for 
it?” 

Irma’s voice came up from the depths of the 
trunk before which she was now kneeling with 
laden hands. 

“N-no. But I wonder at you. I find it so diffi- 
cult to believe that you are going to have to run 
away from the police, and live, heaven knows how ! 
Tell me, Irma” — and the angular child’s face be- 
came as sharp in expression as it was in lines, as 
some fibre of business instinct (inherited, doubtless, 
from the English side of the family) pierced to 
the surface — “how are you going to live? I don’t 
believe you have thought of that at all.” 

“Ah! I shall give lessons, I suppose. After all, 
I’ve learned a lot of things ; that part of the money 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 41 

spent Is not lost, anyway; and I know several lan- 
guages. When one is young and strong, and not a 
fool, there must be ways of gaining money.” 

‘‘I wonder If I shall have to give lessons, too?” 
Gabrielle sighed. 

She had sat down upon the bed beside the cast- 
off ball-dress, and, by way of assisting her sister, 
was reflectively turning over a boxful of ribbons 
which lay there. The business instinct does not nec- 
essarily always produce true helpfulness. 

“Probably not. You will have the benefit of 
mamma’s private fortune, you know.” 

She had not meant to be scornful ; yet it is diffi- 
cult not to speak scornfully when you feel so. 

Gabrielle’s eyes, barely dry, filled again with tears 
of mortification. 

“How unkindly you say that, Irma! And when 
we are not going to see each other again for Heav- 
en knows how long! Perhaps never again! I can’t 
help it if I have not got as much courage as you, 
though I’m sure I like papa quite as much.” 

Irma got quickly to her feet. 

“Gabrielle, I did not mean It! I’m just talking 
at random. It’s all so bewildering. Of course you 
must stay with mamma and take care of her, and 
I will take care of papa. It Is the only possible ar- 
rangement. But, ah, yes ! It is hard upon us.” 

And, In the midst of the open boxes and the sug- 
gestive disorder of the room, the two sisters ran, 
weeping. Into each other’s arms. 


PART II 


CHAPTER I 

UPON THE SHELF 

“Certainly, my dear, certainly — ^just as you 
like I” beamed Sir Christian Denholm over the top 
of his claret-glass. 

It was his answer to his eldest daughter, who 
had just asked him to take her to the Whistler ex- 
hibition next day. It was his usual answer to most 
things asked of him — ^by women, at any rate, 
whether old or young — but especially young. 

Sir Christian was a tall and highly ornamental 
old gentleman, with a fine aquiline nose, brilliant 
grey eyes, and snow-white hair of that fly-away sort 
which unavoidably suggests dandelion fluff. The 
elegance of his appearance, the perfection of his 
manners and the suavity of his disposition made 
him a marked man In every drawing-room. Ur- 
banity and suavity are useful qualities, especially 
to diplomats, and It was In the diplomatic field that 
Sir Christian had gathered whatever laurels still 
decked his exceedingly fine brow. And yet even of 

42 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 43 

good things one can have too much. People who 
knew Sir Christian a little found it difficult to un- 
derstand how he had made his career, since a diplo- 
mat must, after all, be able tO' say No, as well as 
Yes, and be the No wrapped in ever so becoming 
a disguise. People whoi knew him better thought 
they understood, and hinted, smiling, that Sir Chris- 
tian had always been “a woman’s man,” and that 
there are few political pies in Europe into which a 
fair finger is not occasionally inserted. The salons 
of embassies not infrequently represent the field 
upon which, not the great battles, indeed, but the 
preliminary and supplementary skirmishes of diplo- 
matic warfare, are waged, and upon this delicate 
ground a “woman’s man” has occasionally got ad- 
vantages not enjoyed by even the geniuses of the 
profession. 

Yet the disadvantages were there, too. There 
were people who maintained that if asked by a suffi- 
ciently handsome woman to oblige her by handing 
over some such trifle as an English colony to the 
nation represented by her — the beauty’s — husband. 
Sir Christian might be backed to answer: “Cer- 
tainly, my dear, certainly — ^just as you like.” In 
fact, it was asserted that his abrupt and somewhat 
premature withdrawal from the scene had been 
caused by some such incident. These same spiteful 
people quoted a story, dating from the days of Sir 
Christian’s attacheship, according to which a certain 
award of honour, presented to him by a sovereign, 


44 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

had been recognised by the side of some star of the 
ballet masquerading in male attire at an opera re- 
doiite. When asked for the loan of the quasi- 
sacred article, how else could he answer the 
“star’s” eyes being very bright, mind you — than by 
his favourite formula? Indeed, it seemed not un- 
likely that, if awakened suddenly in the night, he 
would, with eyes still closed, begin by murmuring : 
“Certainly, my dear,” etc. 

But this (the sword-of-honour incident) was an- 
cient history, belonging to the time before there 
had been any Lady Denholm to consider. 

There was no Lady Denholm to consider now. 
She had succumbed to malarial fever during the 
term of her husband’s Roman appointment. To 
make up, there were two Miss Denholms, both 
small and fair-haired, with delicate, high-bred fea- 
tures of a slightly shiny whiteness which suggested 
porcelain, and almost of the grain of porcelain, too. 
With the aid of that hair and of that skin it was 
not hard to reconstruct the dead mother. The com- 
parison to Dresden china figures was equally ob- 
vious; it “jumped to the eyes,” in the French turn 
of phrase. Both were training severely for diplo- 
matists’ wives. It was the only thing worth living 
for, as matters struck them. And what wonder, 
either, seeing that the air of embassies was the only 
air which their mental lungs had learned to assimi- 
late? Bred upon alliances and suckled upon ententes 
cordides, their youthful years had, even in the nur- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 45 

sery, been filled with the names of statesmen of all 
nations, their youthful heads been patted by the 
most various sovereigns ; stray threads of diplomatic 
gossip had been worked into the very samplers of 
the schoolroom ; while the transformation of scene 
brought by each new appointment gave to life a 
touch of exalted vagrancy, full of pleasant surprises. 
The shelving of Sir Christian, a year back, had been 
a bitter moment. It was quite a comfortable shelf, 
as, indeed, the look of the dining-room attested; 
but it seemed painfully flat after the stimulating 
ups and downs of cosmopolitan existence. They 
loved England, of course, since it was their coun- 
try ; but they discovered that they had loved it better 
when seen from a French or Russian perspective. 
There they were England, while here no more than 
undistinguishable British atoms. Not even the Lon- 
don season could offer compensation for so much 
loss of personal importance. What excitement could 
a ballroom hold compared to the commotion of a 
wired chiffre arriving in the dead of night? And 
how could Hurlingham vie with the trepidation of 
an audience in times of crisis, when war or peace 
might hang upon the turn of a phrase to be uttered 
within the next hour by the same lips that have just 
said “Good morning” to you? 

No, there was nothing for it but to try and re- 
enter the promised land, by the matrimonial gate, 
of course. Neither Chrissie nor Cissy doubted that 
their time would come. Meanwhile they worked 


46 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

hard — at languages, principally, as well as at an 
intelligent study of politics. Also at the acquisition 
of those social virtues — likely to be useful to the 
hostess of such a salon as both dreamt of one day 
presiding over; though, could they have seen them- 
selves “as others see us,” they would probably have 
recognised that a Watteau shepherdess attire would 
have been their most becoming costume, and to lead 
about a white lamb — ^by a blue ribbon, of course — 
their true vocation in life. Probably they would 
have looked best upon a mantelpiece. A pair of 
them, too! Nothing could have been more com- 
plete. Yet, not seeing themselves — ^maybe, merci- 
fully — they dreamed on their dream, unhampered 
by doubts. 

The person who sat at the foot of the table bore 
a certain responsibility for these dreams. This was 
old Lady Aurelia Mulhampton, the Dresden shep- 
herdesses’ grandmother, privately known to her 
friends as “Lady Mummy.” She had a long, nar- 
row face, which, by candle-light, showed the tint of 
a lemon, and which daylight deepened very nearly 
to that of an orange; a mouth that had grown al- 
most invisible owing to the disappearance of its 
natural supports, and a pair of wickedly bright, 
little, black eyes — the only things about her not vis- 
ibly octogenarian. Whatever hair she might still 
happen to possess was entirely covered by a costly 
lace cap, from under which not so much as a wisp 
escaped to humanise the parchment countenance. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 47 

Since her daughter’s death she had presided over 
Sir Christian’s household, far more successfully 
than poor Edith herself had ever done. The widow 
of a distinguished diplomat, and having for many 
years had the satisfaction of seeing whole corps dip- 
lomatiques tremble before the utterances of her 
caustic tongue, she had successfully married her only 
child to one of the profession, and hoped in time to 
see her grandchildren treading the path which was 
rapidly becoming hereditary. Diplomacy, which, 
after all, consists in getting the better of other peo- 
ple, suited her down to the ground. But though 
she had chosen her son-in-law herself, she was not 
particularly proud of him. Privately, despite his 
superficial brilliancy, she considered him more or 
less of a fraud. To ruffle his tiresome serenity by 
introducing some thorny question was her especial 
delight. She had a whole collection of these little 
bones of contention which it was her habit tO' pro^ 
duce whenever her nervous system demanded the 
stimulus of a dispute. 

Since his retirement the bones of contention were 
more frequently produced. It was, indeed, hard 
to forgive him for his virtual disgrace. Despite 
her eighty-one summers (or, perhaps, winters). 
Lady Aurelia was the member of the family who 
fretted most visibly upon the shelf. 

Yes, Christian had ended disappointingly. But, 
luckily, there was Vincent. Upon Vincent Lady 
Aurelia placed even greater hopes than upon his 


48 POMF AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

father. The future, which, with his abilities, his 
ambition — and, of course, the “right sort of mar- 
riage” to help — Vincent was bound to attain, 
formed the brightest star upon the horizon of the 
fallen family. The discussion of the possibilities 
open to him was the staple subject of conversation 
which neither wearied nor grew stale, and to which 
— Whistler being disposed of — the talk at the din- 
ner-table had returned, as surely as does the river 
to its course. 

“I wonder if there is any news to-night? Vin- 
cent is so late,” said Cissy, casting a glance at a 
folded napkin before an unoccupied chair. 

“He expected to get away from the Foreign 
Office by seven, but evidently he has been kept. 
That may mean anything, you know. Perhaps an- 
other battle in Manchuria?” 

Chrissie’s eyes sparkled at the prospect. 

“A battle in Manchuria wouldn’t be nearly as 
interesting as a vacancy in a secretaryship,” mum- 
bled Lady Aurelia over her minced chicken — the 
only preparation of food which her unarmed jaws 
could grapple with. “Lord Cleghorn as good as 
promised him the next one. But it all depends 
under whom. A secretary has no chance under a 
chief who is a fool, and we’ve got several fools rep- 
resenting us just now.” 

“It will be hard not seeing him and not getting 
the news first-hand,” said Chrissie, wistfully. “But, 
of course, he cannot miss a good opportunity. If it 


POME AND, CIRCUMSTANCE 49 

was New York, now, that would be nice; for he 
might pick up an American heiress, and he needs 
an heiress, doesn’t he, granny?” 

“He needs a woman who knows how to sit at the 
head of a dinner-table, and who won’t blush up to 
her ears when an Emperor or a Sultan or a great 
Mogul speaks to her.” 

“Americans never blush, granny.” 

“Shows their sense. He’s welcome to his Yan- 
kee, so long as she doesn’t smell too hard of salt 
pork or tallow candles. Or he may go in for con- 
nexions instead of money, if he has a fancy that 
way. A handle to a name comes in quite as use- 
fully as a gold-bag, at times. I’d give him plenty 
of tether. The only thing he mustn’t do is to marry 
a country bumpkin. In that event I get straight 
into my grave. A woman who doesn’t know how 
to put on her clothes and who babbles of green fields 
would blast the career of a Talleyrand. And now 
I beg that Cissy should cease making bread pellets, 
as they are beginning to get upon my nerves.” 

“Green fields,” be it here parenthetically ob- 
served, stood very low in her ladyship’s graces. It 
was the air of capitals that was the breath of her 
nostrils, inhaled for so long as to produce a distinct 
antipathy to things rural. “Live in the country and 
keep a trap ! You can’t get much lower than that 1 ” 
she had been heard to comment upon the life-pro^ 
gramme of a young couple of her acquaintance. 

“They’re pretty, though, sometimes, the country 


50 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

bumpkins,” remarked Sir Christian, smiling as 
though at an agreeable recollection. “Braxton had 
a wife of that sort, I remember. It’s true that she 
didn’t know how to put on her clothes, but she had 
the most wonderful complexion.” 

“And it’s true, too, that he left the service a long 
way before the top of the ladder, isn’t it?” 

“Not because of that, dear lady, I think.” 

“Oh, no, to be sure. He made a fool of himself 
in some other way, didn’t he? At the Valaville 
Conference, if I remember right. I wonder if it 
was by letting out that there was nothing remaining 
to confer about, since each delegate arrived with his 
signature in his pocket?” 

The Valaville Conference was one of the favour- 
ite bones of contention — maintained by the dowager 
to have been a hollow farce, planned for the pur- 
pose of affording some extra good dinners to certain 
bon vivant statesmen; for “Lady Mummy’s” 
tongue could not always keep off even the profes- 
sion — an aspersion upon the honour of his sex as 
well as of his calling which even Sir Christian’s 
suavity could not tamely swallow. 

Upon his bland face the effect of the remark was 
as visible as that of a stone flung into smooth water. 

“But there was plenty to confer about, I assure 
you,” he protested with pained dignity. “Nothing 
but the preliminaries had been settled. Europe was 
expecting it. To call it off at the last moment would 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 51 

never have done. It Is always impolitic to disap- 
point public expectation.” 

“I expect it would have been more Impolitic to 
disappoint the appetites of a few of your colleagues, 
and after the chef had been engaged, too! Call it 
the vol-au-vent conference, and be done with it! 
Hi, hi!” 

“I assure you, my dear Lady Aurelia ” 

“As if I didn’t know what the assurances of your 
profession are worth !” chuckled her ladyship, with 
that detachment from the trammels of that same 
profession which she was able to exercise whenever 
It served ends. Nothing, In fact, amused her so 
much as to throw stones — ^or, at any rate, pebbles^ — 
at the Idol of her heart. 

“But what has the Valaville Conference to do 
with Vincent’s future wife?” Interposed Chrissle, 
seizing upon what seemed to be a good opportunity 
of practising the gentle and strictly diplomatic art 
of arbitration. 

“Leave me alone with Vincent’s future wife! 
Don’t oppress me with her ! Don’t choke me with 
her! Give me room to fall!” ejaculated Lady 
iVurella, waving a pair of skin-and-bone hands 
above her empty plate, as though to ward off a 
thronging crowd. Both the ejaculation and the ges- 
ture were familiar to her Intimates, though, as a 
matter of fact. It was Lady Aurelia who more fre- 
quently crowded upon her fellow-creatures than 
they upon her. Neither — the space asked for being 


52 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

granted — had she ever betrayed the least Intention 
of falling. 

“Pm dead sick of Vincent and his future wife. 
And now I beg that Christian should* pass the Ma- 
deira with the least possible delay.” 

The Madeira had been passed and drunk, and 
dessert was on the table, when the electric bell 
buzzed shrilly. 

“Vincent!” cried both Dresden shepherdesses in 
one breath, while Sir Christian, laying down his 
fruit-knife, turned expectantly towards the door, 
which within the same minute opened to admit the 
son of the house. 

“At last!” said the family in general, partly with 
their eyes and partly with their lips. Even Lady 
Aurelia’s black orbs twinkled in a way which scarce- 
ly accorded with the satiety proclaimed a few min- 
utes back. 

“Haven’t deserved my dinner, have I? And yet 
I mean to have some!” laughed Vincent, as he first 
grasped his father’s hand and then, in foreign fash- 
ion, kissed that of his grandmother — ^nodding affec- 
tionately to his sisters the while. 

Sir Christian’s heir, aged twenty-five, without 
being quite as conspicuously ornamental, was at 
least as Imposing-looking as his father. If his eyes 
were less brilliant, his eyebrows less sweeping and 
his nose less decorative, he made up for it in other 
ways. Upon the shoulders of an athlete — though 
somewhat more loosely carried than athletes usually 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 53 

bear themselves — the compact brown head, just 
touched with gold, seemed small, and yet was well 
in proportion with his height. The clean-shaven, 
clear-cut features might have been called boyish but 
for a certain disharmony between the sunny, hazel 
eyes and the somewhat too massive jaw, which, at 
moments, had a trick of obstinately squaring. In 
such moments the thin mouth could be grim, and, 
with the hazel eyes darkening in sympathy, all the 
brightness of the physiognomy was shut up out of 
sight. His sisters were fond of saying that Vincent 
had tsvo faces, his playing face and his working 
face. It might have been as correct to say the face 
given him by nature and the one developed by cir- 
cumstances, the only question to decide being which 
of the two represented the real Vincent. On the 
whole he looked more like the captain of an eleven 
or the stroke oar of a university boat than a diplo- 
mat. 

“Much you’d attain if you only got your de- 
serts,” remarked Lady Amelia in a growl which 
was not meant to be affectionate, but which suffi- 
ciently betrayed the whereabouts of the weak spot 
in her withered heart. 

The hazel eyes went round the table. 

“Wasn’t Cousin Minna to have dined here to- 
night?” 

“She was. Cried off because of some meeting or 
other.” 

“Never mind Minna now. Rather give an ac- 


54 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

count of yourself. What’s the last political plot 
youVe been hatching? And whom have you been 
telling lies to so hard as to forget the dinner-hour?” 

“I haven’t been telling lies to anybody,” said 
Vincent, with sudden sharpness, while upon the 
brightness of his face there descended the periodical 
shadow. 

Lady Aurelia rocked her spare body from side 
to side in an access of spasmodic hilarity. 

“Your naivete is beyond anything, Vincent! 
Why, the lies are half the fun 1” 

“Anything new?” hurriedly questioned Chrissie, 
recognising dangerous ground. 

“Nothing beyond what was in the evening pa- 
pers.” 

“Ah, I don’t mean about the war, but about your^ 
self — any new opening?” 

“Well, the newest thing is that I’ve come to a 
decision.” 

• “Ah ! Tell us all about it while you eat. We’ll 
smoke our cigarettes here, so as to be able to look 
on,” she urged; while Henders, the butler, brought 
in with his own hands a miniature edition of the 
dinner, carefully kept warm for the hope of the 
family. 

The cigarettes was one of the cosmopolitan hab- 
its cultivated, not because either Chrissie or Cissy 
at all enjoyed smoking, but because there are some 
countries in which it is considered dowdy not to 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 55 

smoke. And since one could not know what the 
future 

“Am I to talk with my mouth full?” 

The momentary shadow had flown. It was the 
playing face with which Vincent put the question — 
the white teeth well displayed, the hazel eyes brim- 
ming gleefully. 

“Of course you are.”* 

“Really, you’re very stupid to-day, Vincent,” 
quavered Lady Aurelia. “Allow me to beg that 
you should come to the point.” 

“All right, granny! It’s only that I’ve made 
up my mind to learn Hungarian.” 

The family face fell all round. 

“Is that all?” 

“Yes — for the present. But it’s to lead to more, 
I hope. You evidently haven’t been following Eu- 
ropean events as closely as Asiatic ones. They’re 
going it strong, Kossuth and his lot. Cleghorn 
thinks the movement, once started, will prove irre- 
sistible. Within a measurable number of years — 
possibly of months — they will have gained their 
point — ^which is virtual independence. That, of 
course, means separate representation; — a new Em- 
bassy at Budapest. And that again means that 
attaches who can talk Hungarian will be at a pre- 
mium. See? It’s my own idea. Rather neat, I 
think. What do you say to it, granny?” 

He looked towards his grandmother as to the 
chief authority present. 


56 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Lady Aurelia executed a toothless smile. 

“I say that you’re not quite as blind as a bat. 
It’ll take a little time before I despair of you yet.” 

“Thank you. That’s all I wanted. And now 
the next thing I’ve got to do is to look out for a 
Hungarian teacher.” 

“An excellent plan!” beamed Sir Christian, while 
Chrissie and Cissy revived under this new light cast 
upon the situation. The idea must be good if 
granny approved of it. 

“An advertisement would be the best thing, I 
suppose. I expect it will be a deuce of a matter to 
find a good Hungarian teacher in London. If I 
wanted to learn Chinese or Malayan, I’ve no doubt 
I’d be overwhelmed with offers. But who takes 
Hungarian lessons nowadays?” 

“I know 1” cried Chrissie, abruptly, abandoning 
the cigarette she had been struggling with. “You 
won’t need the advertisement. I’ve just remem- 
bered. Herr Hartmann was saying the other day 
that his daughter speaks Hungarian.” 

“Who is Plerr Hartmann?” 

“That old German who gives us lessons. At 
least, he’s an Austrian; but he speaks German per- 
fectly, and English, too-, for the matter of that. In 
fact, we began by taking him for an Englishman. 
However, he sticks to being an Austrian. He has 
been in London quite a short time, and both he and 
his daughter give German lessons. It said so in 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTTANCE 57 

the advertisement. But he says that she speaks 
Hungarian, too.” 

“H-m ! That might do. And have you seen this 
young woman?” 

“No; and I don’t know about her being young. 
Probably she’s an alte Jungfer, for the father is 
quite old; at least, he has got an absolutely white 
beard, and looks rather ill, too, or rather wretched, 
or something.” 

“And he’s a possible sort of person?” 

“Oh, a gentleman — isn’t he, granny?” 

“The wreck of a gentleman, you mean.” 

“Well, as long as the daughter isn’t the wreck 
of a lady — I should rather object tO' being put 
through my verbs by a person with a past. It 
mightn’t be proper, you know.” 

“I should object to the process far more if car- 
ried out by a person with a future,” said Lady 
Aurelia, incisively. “But I almost think Herr 
Hartmann’s daughter can be taken on trust. He 
doesn’t look like the father of chickens.” 

“He’s coming to-morrow,” remarked Cissy. 

“To be sure he is ! We’ll open negotiations. You 
must give us your days and hours. And, by the 
bye, where are the lessons to take place?” 

“Here, by all means,” decided Lady Aurelia, 
who had, perhaps, been reflecting. “Even an alte 
Jiingfer would probably object to going to your 
rooms — they’re a prudish lot, those Germans — 
and, of course, you would object to going to hers.” 


58 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“Fm agreeable,” said Vincent, vigorously attack- 
ing his cutlet. 

And thus, light-heartedly, the resolution was 
taken. 


CHAPTER II 


ANTIGONE 

The ’bus was packed, inside and out; the hang- 
ing-straps much in request, the toes of the sitters 
proportionately endangered; yet, despite the unrest 
of exits and entrances, despite even the complication 
of wet umbrellas brought in by each newcomer, 
there existed in this miniature, moving crowd a 
centre of interest, as a certain unanimity in the di- 
rection of glances amply proved. 

This centre was to be found under the brim of a 
grey felt hat, which looked rather more “supe- 
rior” than the average of hats met in ’buses. No 
other than a girl’s face — very young, very fresh — 
its freshness set off by a pair of the darkest eyes 
which ever had the right to call themselves blue. 
It was towards the comer in which she sat that 
most heads, of both sexes, showed a propensity for 
turning, almost as steadily as the needle to the 
magnet; it was at this point that the usual circular 
glance with which the newcomer takes stock of his 
companions stopped almost automatically, to pass 
on again hurriedly if the person was discreet, to fix 
59 


6o POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


Itself, more or less openly, if he were the reverse. 
To be able to stare even furtively at a beautiful 
woman is, after all, a treat not lightly to be fore- 
gone, and a rare mitigation of the weariness of ’bus- 
travelling. The treat was granted to many to-day, 
for she had come from a long way west. The con- 
ductor, a wizened, little, grey-haired man with a 
scarlet button of a nose, was beginning to look upon 
her almost with a proprietor’s eye, and in deep ap- 
proval. Unquestionably she conferred distinction 
upon the ’bus. “Such a beauty as we ’ave in here!” 
he felt inclined to whisper to each passenger that 
pressed past him. 

Upon the girl in the grey hat both the approval 
and the indiscretion w^ere lost. Visibly she was too 
deep in her own reflections to be aware of either. 
Not exhilarating, these reflections, apparently; for 
more than once the delicate, dark eyebrows drew 
together, and every now and then the red underlip 
trembled, as lips are apt to tremble when tears are 
near, and then was worried back into quietude by 
a set of small, white teeth which, for all their white- 
ness, gleamed a trifle fiercely. Down the whole 
length of Brompton Road she sat staring out of the 
window opposite with fixed eyes which probably 
saw little of the shop-windows in which the gas, just 
lit, flared successively upon cheap blouses and petti- 
coats, upon joints of beef and mutton, upon the wax 
busts in the hair-dressers’ windows. It was not 
until Brompton Road had melted into Cromwell 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 6i 


Road that she appeared, with a sort of jerk, to 
return to actualities. 

Room was made for her to pass, almost reluc- 
tantly; the wizened conductor’s hand put at her 
disposal for descent, behind her back more than one 
comment exchanged. 

The ’bus rolled on, and she stood alone on the 
pavement, and now, at last, profiting of the privacy 
of the crowd, eased her feelings with an unmistak- 
able sigh. It was a sigh more full of an angry im- 
patience than of anything else, and it was with an 
angry impatience, too, that she now gathered her 
skirt into one hand, while in the other she balanced 
her umbrella, for the April evening remained per- 
sistently wet. The umbrella had a silver handle, 
but there was a fresh rent in the silk, and the wind 
was driving the rain straight into her face, and the 
packet of books under her arm was an encumbrance, 
and, altogether, life had frequently been very much 
easier than the form under which it presented itself 
at this moment. 

Fortunately, the remaining distance was not 
great, and the narrow side-street of Cromwell Road 
— a street to be called “dingy” only because there 
exists no stronger suitable adjective in the English 
language — saved her, at any rate, from the jostle 
of the evening crowd. Here the sooty brick wall 
on either side was identified as houses only by the 
doors and windows piercing it at regular intervals. 
Without this advertisement a stranger to London 


62 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


might have easily mistaken them for the walls of a 
prison-yard. Some one with a sense of humour had 
christened the spot Filbert Gardens.” 

Upon the doorstep of one of these painfully indi- 
vidualised houses the bearer of the umbrella stopped 
and rang the bell, with another sigh, this time of 
relief — of a premature relief, however, since a sec- 
ond and a third application to the bell was needed 
before slipshod steps became audible. The steps 
flew, however, and the door was torn open to a 
width obviously intended as a compensation for 
tardiness. 

“Lor\ Miss ’Artmann! If I’d known it was 
you!” The face which looked out upon the new- 
comer was adorned with a welcoming grin. A set 
of painfully irregular teeth, each leaning in its own 
individual direction — somewhat after the fashion of 
gravestones in an ancient burying-ground — looked 
almost as alarmingly wild as did the unkempt hair, 
innocent of cap. The attire was even dirtier, the 
hands even redder, and the nose even lumpier than 
the average of these features in the “general” of 
third-class London lodging-houses ; but the breadth 
and obvious sincerityof the grin made up for every- 
thing — or might have done so, had other circum- 
stances not been so particularly trying to-night. 

“You might have known it was me, if you had 
taken the trouble to look at the clock,” said the girl 
in the grey hat, with the sharpness of fatigue. “I’m 
late enough, as it is.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 63 

The grin was extinguished by a look of almost 
comical consternation, while the small, pig-like eyes 
became abject. 

“Pm that sorry, miss, I can’t tell ye!” she hum- 
bly protested. “And you so dhreadful wet! Why, 
it’s got on to yer hat — yer ghrand, pritty hat ! Sure, 
I was tellin’ Mrs. Martin but yesterday that there’s 
no hat loike it in the whole of Brompton Road! 
I’m thinkin’ there must be a hole in your umbreller, 
entirely! Just you give it me sthraight off your 
head, and I’ll take it to the kitchen fire. For the 
love of the saints, give it me, my' sweet young lidy 1” 
pleaded Pattie, the purity of whose brogue had, 
owing to a long metropolitan residence, become 
considerably contaminated by cockney vowels. 

Upon the blue-eyed girl’s face impatience and 
amusement struggled visibly — for the red hands 
showed signs of appropriating the hat by brute 
force, if need be — but in the end she burst out 
laughing. 

“There — take it, in heaven’s name ! Only, mind 
you don’t put it In the fire by mistake. And, Pattie, 
I’m sorry I spoke so sharply; but, oh, you don’t 
know how tired lam!” 

“Shairply?” 

Pattie, overwhelmed by so unprecedented a thing 
as an apology, seemed ready to collapse on the floor, 
hat and all. ^^Thafs not what Mrs! Martin calls 
shairply. Sure, onless her hand’s In It, as well as 
her tongue — or, maybe, her toe, whiles,” added 


64 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Pattle, with a wink of her tiny eyes which indicated 
a perfect appreciation of the humour of the situa- 
tion — “she doesn’t think she’s spoken to me at all. 
The idea of your bein’ sorry I Holy Saints ! And 
after such a bad day as you must have had of it I 
You *ave had a bad day, ’aven’t you, miss?” 

“Baddish. But I daresay you’ve had a worse 
one.” 

The blue-eyed girl was actually smiling again. 

“Me, miss? What’s that to do with it? Sure, 
I’m used to it, aren’t I ? But any one can see that 
you’re not. The red hands waved in a manner 
perilous to the grey hat. “It’s in a foine coach you 
should be rhidin’, and not in a dhirty ’bus. Any 
one with half an eye can see ” 

“Hush, Pattie! Nobody has got any business 
to see anything! Is my father come in yet?” 

“Not he, miss; though I put on the foire, as you 
told me to. And you’ll be wantin’ your supper, 
I’m thinkin’ ?” 

“Not until my father comes in.” 

The blue-eyed girl opened a door off the narrow 
entrance, and, groping her way to the mantelpiece, 
put a match to the gas and looked about her. 

The forethought which had lit the fire in the 
grate had not stretched to the maintenance of it, 
for which reason the room was distinctly chilly. 
Needless to say that it was also ugly, with that in- 
trinsically mean and sordid ugliness which is a 
specialite of the cheap London lodging. There 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 65 

was the usual narrow mantelpiece of painted wood, 
with the usual glass vases and china baskets upon it, 
the usual dim table which had once been shiny, the 
usual straight-backed chairs and unreposeful sofa; 
while it would have been as hazardous as it gener- 
ally is to form a conjecture as to the original colour 
of the narrow chintz curtains, or the original pat- 
tern of the much-trodden carpet Yet, beside this 
rockbed of fundamental features there- were a few 
touches noticeable which spoke of attempts at a 
sort of superficial correction ; to these belonged the 
primroses in the vases, and a couple of bright cush- 
ions on the sofa. An iron bedstead and a tin wash- 
ing-table proclaimed- the room to be a bedroom, but 
the presence of a quaint Japanese paper screen and 
of some books upon the table indicated that it was 
expected to play the sitting-room as well. 

Having looked about her. Miss ’Artmann, other- 
wise Irma Harding, first applied herself to coaxing 
back into flame the embers in the grate by means of 
the dregs of the coal-scuttle. This successfully 
achieved, she put a few chairs straight, pulled the 
least uncomfortable of them to the fire, fetched a 
pair of slippers from behind the screen and put them 
to toast, pulled out a few faded primroses and re- 
settled the others, and finally turned up the gas a 
little higher. It was not until she was satisfied, 
comparatively speaking, with the look of the room 
that she retired to the one alongside — a much 
smaller one, with its window to the backyard, and 


66 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


with not even the pretence of a fire in the grate — to 
divest herself of her damp jacket and boots. 

Presently she was back again, and, sitting down 
before the fire, proceeded to think out the latest 
thing in difficulties, one of the many which had 
strewn the fugitives’ path since the day on which, 
under cover of the morning’s shadows, they had left 
the house in the Vienna Ringstrasse. 

How long ago it seemed, that winter dawn full 
of the hurry of packing and the poignancy of fare- 
wells! How far away, already, that moment at 
which she had got into the cab, alone with her dully 
passive father ! Until they reached Hamburg, late 
that night, he had retained the same dazed expres- 
sion of face which had been there during the terrible 
family scene. It was the sight of the shipmasts 
on the Elbe which seemed to bring him back to 
reality. No decision had yet been come to as to 
their further destination, and Irma now called for 
one. During the whole of the day’s voyage every- 
thing had been left to her, but to decide the main 
question she did not feel competent, though she 
urged New York, as the most obvious thing. But 
here an unlooked-for opposition met her — Harding 
pleaded for London, It would be just as safe, he 
assured her, since for years past he had been prac- 
tically expatriated. So long as he kept clear of the 
quarter of the city in which was situated the mother 
establishment of the “Anglo-Saxon,” and where his 
face was known from his flying business visits, there 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 67 

really existed no danger. And he dreaded the long 
sea-voyage. The eagerness of his arguments be- 
trayed some thought behind. But Irma did not 
guess that this thought was the dread of putting the 
ocean between him and the woman he still adored. 
With only the Channel between, the hope of a 
meeting — if only a final one — did not seem so ut- 
terly extravagant. Not even the scene after the 
ball had been able to shatter the idol, though it 
could not fail to tear off some of its glittering veils. 
In truth, it had not really altered the respective po^ 
sitions of husband and wife, but only intensified 
them. It was not for her goodness or her generos- 
ity that he had loved Isabella, but just because she 
was Isabella, and she remained Isabella still. Pas- 
sions of this description are nearly allied to mono- 
mania, and monomaniacs, as is well known, are not 
susceptible even to the plainest demonstration. 

So London it had been. And London had swal- 
lowed them up as tracelessly as only London can. 
What other stomach, indeed, could so perfectly di- 
gest the miscellaneous morsels flung to it daily ? 

The hunt for the defrauding bank director had 
passed harmlessly over their heads and across the 
ocean to their originally proposed place of refuge. 
That “doubling back” from Hamburg had proved 
a far more effective measure for throwing off the 
scent than either of them had imagined. 

I.ondon pavement, then, was the battlefield on 
which the life-struggle was to be fought out. It 


68 POMF AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

was a sharper and, in especial, a meaner and less 
picturesque battle than Irma, in her ignorance, had 
supposed. Did she, for this, regret having accepted 
the challenge of Fate? With her hand upon her 
heart she could have answered. No. For any such 
defection her spirit was too high, her motive too 
sincere. Yet, it was inevitable that after the exal- 
tation of the critical moment reaction should follow. 
Excitement cannot persist, though purpose may. 
Having actually done the thing, she was, at 
moments, seized by a sort of panic, as of a person 
who, having swung himself to the pinnacle 
of a high rock, wonders, giddily, whether he will 
be able to keep his balance at that height. But 
these were but moments of weakness, ever and 
again triumphed over by a stronger emotion — the 
instinct of protection towards the poor, bruised man 
whose only moral support she knew herself to be. 
Having forced him to live, against his own will, she 
felt bound also to help him to live. The weight of 
responsibility thus thrown upon her had, as with 
the stroke of a hammer, transformed her person- 
ality, just as a stroke will steady and fix that which 
it does not break down. And yet it would probably 
be truer to speak of a revelation rather than a 
transformation. That stroke of the hammer might 
as easily be supposed, by shattering the crust of 
superficial qualities, to have brought to light the 
true substance of the soul beneath. If it is true that 
nothing can be taken out of a sack but what is in 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 69 

it, then it would be equally true that Irma was 
brave and generous and unselfish even in the days 
when she appeared to be only gay and good-natured 
and pleasure-seeking ; but it had wanted the blow of 
the hammer to discover it even to herself. 

To see the wrecked man gradually regaining his 
hold upon life, to mark his humble gratitude, was 
reward enough for all sacrifices — or, at any rate, 
for all those which had yet been asked. When, 
with a smile that was sadder than a sigh, he would 
call her his Antigone, her heart beat high. This 
Antigone meant to do even more than the other 
Antigone had done, for she meant to fill up by her 
devotion alone the hole that had been torn in his 
life; and in the sanguine enthusiasm of her years, 
and despite the blankness of the eyes which wan- 
dered wearily, as eyes are apt to wander which have 
lost their real object of vision, she actually believed 
she would succeed. 

A primary necessity was, of course, that he 
should never guess at her moments of discourage- 
ment. In truth, the effort of maintaining a smiling 
face had not been over-great so far, for the situation 
still bore that character of newness which, at eigh- 
teen, makes up for a good deal. It was almost pos- 
sible — at moments, anyway — to persuade herself 
that they were only playing at being poor. 

But to-day’s events might easily bring the game 
unpleasantly near to reality. Her best lesson had 
just been called off, the lesson which, together with 


70 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

her father’s two hours a week in Sir Christian Den- 
holm’s house, had proved the pihe de resistance 
of their modest existence. Not even the first days 
in London had held so critical a moment as this; 
for during those first weeks there had still been 
some ready money, thanks to which they had been 
able to advertise so judiciously as to secure almost 
immediate occupation. The lessons at the Denholms 
had been an extraordinary piece of luck, and so 
had her own employment in the house of a motor 
manufacturer who had already motored himself 
into his second million, and did not mean to stop 
before his tenth. The son and heir, aged seven, 
was being trained to represent the “Cerberus” mo^ 
tor on the Continent, for which purpose the Ger- 
man language was naturally indispensable. The 
somewhat brusque dismissal given to-day had been 
explained by a change of plans which was obviously 
a pretext. It was not the plans which were at 
fault, as Irma easily guessed, but her pupil’s bache- 
lor uncle — likewise partner in the “Cerberus” — 
who, having chanced to come in during one of the 
lessons, had developed in his nephew’s progress an 
interest which the family obviously considered sus- 
picious, Oh, Irma understood quite well. She had 
not been through a Vienna carnival for nothing. 
And yet how innocent she felt of even the faintest 
desire to attract the attention of the well-washed, 
well-groomed, well-nourished young Croesus ! She 
knew how to do it — ah, yes! quite well — had she 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 71 

not practised upon Baron Kiraly? But she was no 
longer quite the same girl who had exchanged ban- 
tering remarks with the black-eyed Bajon, and she 
was already too anxious about her daily bread to 
endanger it by playing any foolish pranks. 

Instinctively, at this point of her reflections, she 
raised her eyes to the mantelpiece. There, among 
the vases and baskets, was throned that same penny 
doll which she had danced upon her knee during 
the “toy-shop figure” of the cotillon^ and which, in 
the hurry of the precipitate packing, had got thrown 
into her box by mistake, with its wooden leg en- 
tangled in her lace handkerchief. It was with a 
curious sort of pang that she had discovered it at 
the end of the voyage, and set it up deliberately on 
the most conspicuous spot of the room. The little 
wooden atom in the spangled pink skirt and with 
the bead necklace around its thin neck seemed to* 
her like the embodiment of all that brilliant time 
which lay behind her, the very personification of 
the gay Vienna carnival. It could harm no one, 
not even her father, if she occasionally refreshed 
herself by a fancy excursion into that region of lost 
delights. Pattie, from the first, had succumbed to 
the charms of the pink doll. 

“What’s her name, miss?” she had asked on a 
certain day on which Irma had discovered her gig- 
gling in front of the mantelpiece. 

“Her name? I think her name is Vindobona,” 
said Irma, after a pause, as spontaneously the clas- 


72 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

SIC name of the beloved residence rose to her 
mind. 

From that day on “Winderboney” — the near- 
est that Pattie could achieve^ — had become a per- 
sonage. To dispose of the spangled figure in what 
she considered to be the most becoming positions, 
and to put her wooden limbs through contortions as 
excruciating as those of the most highly paid acro- 
bats, was to the “general” a source of never-ending 
delight. To-day, butterfly fashion, she was hover- 
ing on one leg in the middle of a primrose bunch, 
with arms stretched wildly overhead. To Irma’s 
disturbed imagination the gesture seemed one of 
distraction. 

“Lessons ! Lessons ! Help I Help ! Give me 
new lessons! Pupils to the rescue!” the pink doll 
seemed to be shrieking; and the fancied cry mingled 
in Irma’s mind with a very real desire to throttle 
the fat and smiling Mr. Potts, junior. 

The bitterest part still remained — that of telling 
her father of the lost lessons. And yet she wished 
he was here already to be told. With the anxiety 
of her new-born solicitude she listened for his ring, 
and, when it came, sprang up with an alacrity which 
easily forestalled Pattie, who, to judge from the 
nature of the sounds proceeding from lower regions, 
was being severely belaboured by Mrs. Martin’s 
tongue, if not actually by her hands. 

“Another saucer, probably,” thought Irma, as 
she sped to the door; for Mrs. Martin was most 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 73 

emphatically not **mistress of herself” when china 
fell, and the amount of china which fell under 
Pattie’s care defied calculation — she belonging to 
the category of people whose fingers are best de- 
scribed as “all thumbs.” 

“So late, papal You must be drenched. Come 
in quickly. Your slippers are beautifully toasted, 
and supper will soon be here — at least, I hope so, if 
Pattie has left enough plates whole to serve it on.” 

All the worry of a moment back was swept out 
of sight. She must tell him of the loss, of course, 
but, at least, she would tell it to him with a smile on 
her lips. 

“What has kept you so long?” 

“Various things: a block in the street, a wrong 
’bus I got into. Then I left my umbrella at the 
bookshop where I was choosing a grammar and 
had to tramp back for it.” 

“Poor papa I Are you very tired ?” 

“Not more than usual,” said the present Herr 
Hartmann, in a tone which betrayed complete in- 
difference on the subject. Then, while Irma helped 
him out of his overcoat : “i\nd how have you fared, 
Irma?” 

It was the usual comparing of daily notes be- 
tv^een the exiles. 

“Oh, pretty well. I’ll tell you all about it pres- 
ently. But first get comfortable, and I’ll ring for 
supper. I do hope you’ve not overdone yourself.” 

She looked at him critically, much as an anxious 


74 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

mother might look at a delicate child. In her af- 
fection, indeed, for the being who, both physically 
and mentally, was so much weaker than herself 
there was more of the maternal than of the filial. 

The Herr Hartmann who presently sank down 
on to the chair before the fire and passively allowed 
his feet to be put into the slippers which Irma, now 
kneeling on the floor, held ready, was a come-down 
even from the Mr. Harding who, on a February 
day, now two months back, had taken a revolver 
out of a drawer. The dull eyes lay deeper in the 
sockets ; the stoop was no longer that of a man who 
bends over, rather of one who bends under, a thing. 
The beard which mercifully covered the uneasy 
mouth had grown as white as that of a man of sev- 
enty — a disguise in itself. Yet were the weary eyes 
not without occasional gleams of a sort of tender 
surprise. One of these gleams came to them now 
as he watched Irma on her knees. It was so un- 
usual a thing to be waited on that it astonished him 
anew each time. 

Suddenly he stooped forward and patted her 
brown head. 

“You’re a good girl, Irma ! And I’ve got a good 
piece of news for you, too!” 

Irma looked up, flushing with pleasure, more at 
the praise than at the promise. 

“Have you, papa? Out with it, then! I’m 
rather in want of something good.” 

“Well, what do you say to a new pupil? And 


Passively allowed his feet to be put into the slippers which Irma . . . held ready 








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POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 75 

do you feel able to play the Hungariau mistress as 
well as the German?” 

Irma got rapidly to her feet. 

“A new pupil? But, papa, that is just what IVe 
been praying for ! Tell me about it quickly I Boy 
or girl? What age? How often a week? Will 
they pay well ? Gracious, how mercenary one does 
get, to be sure !” And her laugh rang out as mer- 
rily as in the days of prosperity. 

“They’ll pay very well ; and it’s a boy, but rather 
a big boy, I gather, since he’s in the Foreign Office.” 

Irma’s face fell. 

“Oh, a young man. I’ve had rather enough of 
young men for the present. There are certain in- 
conveniences attached to the species.” 

“I’ve thought of the inconveniences, and I’ve 
stipulated that the lessons are to take place in the 
presence of the grandmother, a regular double-dyed 
old dragon, whose mere look ought to be enough 
to extinguish any flirtatious inclinations on the part 
of the grandson. But I didn’t think it necessary 
to mention your exact age ; it might have frightened 
them off, though it seems he’s very keen about the 
lessons. He’s a diplomat who, for some profes- 
sional reason or other, wants to learn the language. 
It’s rather a chance ; but if you don’t like the idea, 
of course we can cry off.” 

“Cry off ? Not for worlds 1 ” 

All Irma’s spirit of enterprise had risen to the 
surface. 


76 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“I’ll keep the diplomat in order, never fear, papa, 
even without the dragon’s intervention. Of course, 
she’ll suspect me of wanting to make eyes at him — 
they always do; but I don’t mean even to give him 
a chance of discovering what colour my eyes are; 
they shall be continually glued to the book — ^just 
you see if they won’t! And I’ll brush my hair 
smooth and coil it tight and make myself look as 
spinstery as I possibly can. Oh, how tiresome peo- 
ple are, and how much more convenient a plain face 
would be — in my profession of life, that is to say.” 

“Hadn’t you something to tell me?” asked 
Harding, as he watched her, with his faint smile. 

“Ah, that doesn’t matter now. It’s only that 
I’ve lost a pupil, that Potts boy, you know. I was 
rather down in the mouth about it when you came 
in because of the hole in the budget. But the diplo- 
mat fills up the hole beautifully. I say, papa, what 
faces they’ll make when I come into the room I I’ll 
bet anything they’re expecting the regular accom- 
plished old cat. I hope that shock won’t be too 
great for them. No, after all, I don’t want to be 
plain, but I’m going to be terribly proper!” 

As a proof of which Irmaiclapped her hands and 
took a waltz-turn round the dim table and almost 
up against Pattie, who at that moment appeared 
with the supper-tray and woefully swollen eyes. 
The child within Irma, though generally invisible 
nowadays, was not yet dead, after all. 

“What was it, Pattie — a saucer?” she queried, 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 77 

breathless but sympathetic. “Mrs. Martin seemed 
to be in very fine form.” 

“A — a soup-thereen, miss,” gasped Pattie; “the 
same as I broke last week.” 

“Pattie, you’re a genius! Most people only 
break things once. How do you manage ?” 

“And sure a thereen has two handles, hain’t it?” 
remarked Pattie, with a touch of offended dignity, 
as of one whose powers are being unrightfully 
doubted. 

“To be sure! But what a pity it’s only two, 
Pattie ! What are handles there for, I should like 
to know ? But cheer up, Pattie — this simplifies the 
future considerably ! Without handles it’ll be ever 
so much easier to drop than with handles, you 
know !” 

Against this suggestion the gloom on Pattie’s 
face was not proof. Indeed, a saving sense of 
humour was among the boons which a merciful 
Providence had shed upon an otherwise not rosy 
lot. So instantaneous was the display of the crazy- 
looking teeth, so abrupt the burst of laughter, that 
Irma’s intervention alone saved the plates from the 
fate predicted for the remains of the tureen. 


CHAPTER III 


THE PUPIL 

Despite her brave speeches, It was for Irma a 
nervous moment when Renders, with a dignity of 
demeanour before which — in her unfamiliarity with 
the genus “British butler” — she secretly quailed, 
preceded her up the thickly carpeted staircase in 
Eaton Place and into the presence of Lady Aurelia. 
Not of Lady Aurelia alone, for — ^with the exception 
of the pupil himself, who had not come up to time 
— the family, by a sort of tacit understanding, had 
gravitated towards the morning-room. Vincent’s 
Hungarian lessons, considering their purpose, could 
not be regarded otherwise than as a family event. 

When — Renders, after the announcement of 
“Miss ’Artmann,” having closed the door behind 
him — Irma found herself opposite to a very old 
lady with a dark yellow face, she instinctively 
dropped a curtsey, and then checked herself half- 
way, remembering that this was not Austria, while 
the consciousness of her blunder, as well as of the 
presence of three other people in the room, caused 
the pink roses in her cheeks to deepen to crimson. 

78 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 79 

The dead silence which followed her entry, though 
possibly flattering to her vanity, was nevertheless 
disturbing. Each of the four people present was 
virtually gaping — mentally, if not physically, and 
each after his or her fashion. Lady Aurelia’s eyes 
had narrowed to pin-points, the ex-Ambassador’s 
chronic smile became paralysed upon his lips, while 
the animated Dresden figures drew nearer together, 
visibly flurried. 

Of course it was Lady Aurelia who recovered 
first. 

“You are Fraulein Hartmann?” she enquired, 
after that brief and speechless pause, while her yel- 
low hand groped for her eyeglasses. 

“Yes, I am Fraulein Hartmann.” 

“Well, I shouldn’t have thought so',” decided 
the dowager, having found and used her glasses; 
and, devoid of logic though the remark might be, 
it nevertheless very fairly represented the impres- 
sions of the rest of the spectators. 

“Will you allow me to help you out of your 
jacket?” asked Sir Christian, quite himself again 
now — more than himself, in fact, since the sight of 
such a face was almost enough to make the “wom- 
an’s man” forget his white hairs. 

“Thank you. And my pupil ?” 

Her eyes went round the room with the question, 
but fell only upon Chrissie and Cissy standing close 
together and still regarding her in undisguised as- 
tonishment. There they hung for a moment wist- 


8o POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


fully. Girls of her own age, and living in the same 
sort of social paradise in which she had once lived, 
or one, at any rate, on the same level of material 
comfort — ^well cared for, jealously guarded, not ex- 
posed to the accident of rude encounters. Her 
heart tightened at the quick comparison. But these 
were not her pupils, nor the old lady, nor the old 
gentleman. There was nothing in the room that 
could be construed into a diplomat. 

“Your pupil will be here directly. The lesson 
takes place in this room. I think you will find that 
table convenient. You have books with you, I pre- 
sume?” 

“Nothing but a dictionary, as yet; but I have or- 
dered a grammar. I was not prepared for giving 
Hungarian lessons, you see; but I shall manage 
meanwhile.” 

“Christian,” remarked Lady Aurelia, who had 
been impatiently watching her son-in-law’s manipu- 
lations, “I beg that you leave that jacket alone; 
and I likewise beg that you leave Fraulein Hart- 
mann and me alone. I wish to consult with her 
about her method of teaching ; and, at any rate, we 
can’t do with so much public.” 

Thus unambiguously ordered from the room, 
Chrissie and Cissy retired regretfully; for they had 
hoped to pick up a few Hungarian crumbs, which — 
who knows ? — might come in useful some day. And, 
besides, Fraulein Hartmann’s hat had a cachet of 
its own^ which would have been worth while study- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 8i 

ing. They were followed by their no less regretful 
father. 

‘‘I have brought a copy-book,” said Irma, in as 
professional a tone as she could muster; for this 
tete-a-tete with the “Dragon” was more than she 
had bargained for. “Dictation is indispensable, of 
course. I see there are plenty of pens, and I sup- 
pose there is blotting-paper, too ?” 

There was no answer, and she looked up ner- 
vously, to find Lady Aurelia regarding her with a 
hard, unwinking stare. 

“You have very fine eyes, my dear,” was all the 
answer made to the remark about the blotting- 
paper. 

Irma flushed hotly. 

“Rather early in the acquaintance for the re- 
mark, eh ? Perhaps it is, but at my age one doesn’t 
usually care about losing time. I therefore take 
the liberty of repeating that you have very fine eyes. 
Allow me to add that I hope you know how to man- 
age them.” 

“I — I don’t understand.” 

“Oh, yes, you do — unless you’re a fool, which 
you don’t look. I said manage, mind, and not use. 
Any idiot could use eyes like that; but it takes 
brains, as well as will, to keep them in order. I 
hope you can do that, for if you can’t your pupil 
will have to get his Hungarian lessons elsewhere.” 

Irma audibly gasped. “Lady — Lady ” 

“Aurelia,” supplemented the dowager, calmly. 


82 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“Lady Aurelia, I didn’t expect to be ” 

“In case you are thinking of saying ‘insulted,’ I 
should recommend you to reconsider the expression. 
Pointing out plain facts isn’t an insult, so far as I 
know, and the fact of your being a young woman 
and my grandson being a young man may, I think, 
be considered as beyond dispute. These are cir- 
cumstances under which the acquisition of languages 
is apt to suffer. In fact, to be plain with you, if f 
had seen you before to-day I would never have con- 
sented to the arrangement.” 

“Neither would I, if I had known,” burst out 
the quivering Irma. “And I am quite ready, even 
now, to break the engagement, if you so wish it. 
I can go away at once; — this minute — there is still 
time ” 

But in this she was mistaken; there was no more 
time, for just then the door was flung open, and 
Vincent, a little breathless from having, in the con- 
sciousness of his tardiness, taken two steps at a time, 
stood on the threshold. 

“I am sorry, granny,” he began, and then 
stopped short, staring with almost unmannerly 
breadth at the beautiful, angry girl in the middle* of 
the room, whose quivering lips, shining eyes and 
heaving bosom presented, a picture of emotion so 
unconventional as almost to startle, among these 
conventional surroundings. What was she doing 
here? What had his grandmother been doing to 
her? Where was the German spinster? The ques- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 83 

tions darted through his mind like the zigzags of 
lightning. He was on the point of saying, “Will 
you introduce me?” when Lady Aurelia, in some- 
what trailing accents, remarked: 

“This is your pupil, Fraulein Hartmann,” where- 
upon he executed what was probably the most awk- 
ward bow of his life — one not at all up to the height 
of professional traditions. Even a diplomat could 
not be expected so quickly to readjust the differences 
between the alte Jungfer in his mind and the 
Hungarian teacher, such as she presented herself 
in the flesh. 

With a sort of wrathful haughtiness, Irma in- 
clined her head, scarcely glancing in his direction. 
If there were any electricity in the air, such as is 
supposed to accompany the first contact of two 
human atoms who, from all eternity — blindly, deaf- 
ly, ignorantly — have been travelling towards each 
other, to meet at the appointed spot and in the ap- 
pointed moment, it was lost upon Irma, overlaid 
by the acuteness of the recent annoyance. Just as 
plain and sharp as was his impression, just as faint 
and blurred was hers. If she had burst upon his 
sight, he had no more than dawned upon hers, and 
not with any accompanying pleasure ; for the indig- 
nation against the grandmother could scarcely help 
including the grandson. So this was the precious 
youth who was to be guarded from the danger of 
her glances ? Well, they would soon be able to esti- 
mate the extent of that danger. She would look at 


84 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

him so little that, even meeting him in the street, 
she would not know him again. And so little did 
she look at him on that first day that she had no 
more than a dim remembrance of rather remarkably 
broad shoulders and a rather remarkably small 
head. 

“We were discussing — ^methods of teaching,” ob- 
served Lady Aurelia, unperturbed. 

“Ah! and you seem to have been having some 
differences of opinion on the subject,” laughed Vin- 
cent, beginning to recover from the shock just re- 
ceived, though it was only much later that he dis- 
covered what the nature of that shock had actually 
been. 

“Only a very slight difference,” said the unblush- 
ing dowager. “And,” she added, with a meaning 
look towards the girl, “I believe Fraulein Hart- 
mann has now perfectly grasped my intentions.” 

Irma met the small, black eyes, and for a moment 
visibly hesitated. In the next she turned to the 
table and put ready the copy-book. During that 
moment she had thought of what her father’s face 
would be if she was obliged to tell him that the 
hope of this lesson, too, was lost. 

“We had better begin at once,” she said, stiffly. 
“I have marked a list of easy words in the diction- 
ary to start with. I suppose you know that Hun- 
garian is about the most difficult to acquire of all 
European languages, since it has no relation to any 
other?” 


Pomp and circumstance ss 

“Yes, I know it’s a hard nut to crack, but I mean 
to crack it, all the same.” 

“It is also unmelodious.” 

“You’re not encouraging, Fraulein Hartmann,” 
smiled Vincent. “But I’m not to be frightened off. 
At the rate your country is going ahead we shall 
have to count with her, and therefore with her 
language.” 

“Hungary is not my country,” said Irma, as 
stiffly as before. 

“I thought you were half a Hungarian?” 

“Only a quarter, at most.” 

“And more than a quarter English, I should 
think, to judge from your speech?” 

“Yes,” began Irma, and then stopped, colouring 
painfully. The English element was just the thing 
that it was prudent to keep out of sight. “That is 
to say, no. There is only a little English blood in 
the family,” she said confusedly. “We are Aus- 
trians.” 

Vincent hastened to abandon a ground which evi- 
dently held some unexplained cause of embarrass- 
ment. 

“Even as an Austrian, Hungarian affairs must 
interest you deeply. What is the popular idea as 
to Elungary’s chances of independence?” 

“Oh, you are not going to talk politics, are you ?” 
asked Irma, with a look of unmistakable alarm, 
“for I don’t know anything about them.” 

“So much the better,” interposed Lady Aurelia’s 


86 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

voice from the background. “I understood that 
this was to be a Hungarian lesson, and not a politi- 
cal conference.” 

Biting her lip hard, Irma sat down, while the 
fragments of the professional manner, which, un- 
avoidably, had suffered both from the embarrass- 
ment and the alarm, were hastily gathered together. 

“Since you have no knowledge at all of the lan- 
guage, we shall have to begin at the very beginning. 
I am afraid you will find the lessons rather tedious.” 

“I think not,” remarked Vincent, with a convic- 
tion which his grandmother inwardly marked, with- 
out by any means digesting. 

Pupil and teacher were now sitting opposite to 
each other, with a narrow table between — (Lady 
Aurelia had already resolved that it should be a 
broader one next time) — and Irma had taken a 
firm hold of the dictionary. 

“I say, Fraulein Hartmann,” observed Vincent, 
as a sort of corollary to his last remark, “how many 
lessons do you think it will take me to get along 
at all in Hungarian?” 

“I really cannot say. I have never had a Hun- 
garian pupil before, as I tell you. But I daresay 
that in about twenty- four lessons yow could manage 
to get yourself understood.” 

“Twenty-four lessons, at two a week,” calculated 
Vincent, aloud; “that adds up to about three 
months. Yes, I feel a presentiment that it won’t 
take less than that.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 87 

“Will you be so kind as to write to my dicta- 
tion?” interrupted the teacher, coldly. “I shall 
begin with the simplest forms of speech: I gen — 
Yes; Am— *No.” 

mused Vincent; “surely that is the most 
aggressive form of acquiescence I have yet met 
with ! Two syllables, too ! Every other nation I 
am acquainted with acquiesces in one syllable.” 

He was bending to his task now, with his “work- 
ing-face” on, the lips hard-set, the laughter sternly 
banished from the hazel eyes. A vision of Buda- 
pest, and of the possible post to be there attained, 
had risen to blot out the face at the other side of the 
table. 

During the half-hour that followed. Lady 
Aurelia, with one eye upon the Times leader and 
the other upon pupil and teacher, found no occasion 
for verbal remark, though possibly some for mental 
comment. 

“Well, what do you think of her, granny?” 
asked Chrissie, at the very earliest moment at which 
it became possible to put the question. 

Like a stream whose dam has been removed, the 
family had flowed back intO' the moming-room. 
There was no one there but Lady Aurelia, now, for 
the departure of the pupil. In a hansom, to the For- 
eign Ofiice, had well-nigh coincided with that of the 
teacher, on foot, to the nearest ’bus stand. 

“I think she is a good deal prettier than is at all 
convenient,” 


88 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“One of the finest girls I have seen for a long 
time,” endorsed Sir Christian, with the confidence 
of a connoisseur. 

“Isn’t she? And Pm sure her hat is a Vienna 
hat — it’s got such a particular chic. Why, she 
doesn’t look poor at all.” 

“She hasn’t been poor for long, that’s clear — and 
not from her hat alone,” added Lady Aurelia, 
thinking of the*defiant gleam in the eyes which had 
faced her, of the haughtiness of that brief inclina- 
tion. “Life hasn’t had time to tame her yet, and 
her clothes haven’t had time to sink to the level of 
her fortunes. They hail from better days, evidently 
— and not from distant ones, either. I shouldn’t 
mind that if it wasn’t for the wearer. How much 
Hungarian do you expect Vincent to learn under 
her tuition? Not likely he’ll keep his eyes to his 
book much, is it, with that face two yards off?” 

“No easy matter, indeed,” admitted the ex-An> 
bassador. 

“But Vincent is so steady,” objected Chrissie, 
“and so taken up with his career.” 

“He didn’t look particularly steady when he came 
in an hour ago and found her standing in the mid- 
dle of the room, like an outraged queen ; for I had 
been giving her some friendly advice.” 

“Well, he must have been surprised, of course, 
and he can’t help admiring her. But you know 
what his principles are^ and his ideas about mar- 
riage ” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 89 

“Marriage!” almost shrieked Lady Aurelia, with 
an hilarious parting of her sunken lips. “What a 
goose you are, Chrissie!” 

“Then it’s only a ‘flirt’ you’re afraid of? But — 
would that really m.atter much, so long as he learns 
Hungarian?” 

Lady Aurelia chuckled. It was a remark which 
she might almost have made herself, though, to do 
Chrissie justice, she was not in the least aware of 
its cynicism. 

“A spice of admiration may be an excellent in- 
centive to learning,” insinuated Sir Christian. 

“There’s something in that; and so long as it 
remains a spice, and doesn’t become harmful, I’ve 
no objection. But the line of demarcation isn’t al- 
ways visible to the naked eye. And now I beg that 
these remarks cease for. the present and that I be 
granted some repose after the strain of the last 
hour. Don’t press upon me, all of you! Give me 
room to fall !” 


CHAPTER IV. 


MR. HEKETES 

Vincent was enjoying himself greatly. Doubled 
over a sheet of foolscap, across which his pen trav- 
elled swiftly, with pigeon-holes to the right of him, 
pigeon-holes to the left of him, an inkstand as deep 
as a small well in front of him, and to his rear an- 
other table with another pen travelling over an- 
other sheet, he was literally revelling in his task. 
It was one of those moments at which his profession 
appeared to him to be entirely desirable, as distinc- 
tive from others in which he found it chiefly per- 
plexing. 

The task before him was congenial, partly be- 
cause it was difficult — and he loved tackling diffi- 
culties — a polite but forcible warning to a certain 
South American State regarding its “perky” be- 
haviour in a recent commercial episode, joined to a 
more or less veiled hint of what would follow if the 
warning were disregarded. The first rough draft 
had been too tame, the second too fierce. Now 
Vincent was to be allowed a shot at the happy me- 
dium. In his hands the prickly problem of raising 
90 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 91 

the ghost of a naval demonstration without pro- 
nouncing the name of the thing had been entrusted. 

“Let them catch a sight of ship-masts between 
the lines,” had said to him the personage who at 
that moment represented Great Britain’s recogni- 
tion of the existence of other nations, “and let them 
hear the rattling of lifted anchor-chains, but not yet 
that of ammunition. Even the glimpse of a single 
cannon-ball might make them nervous, and nervous 
people are apt to blunder. You understand?” 

“Perfectly,” said Vincent, as he withdrew from 
The Presence. 

And that was why he was now enjoying himself 
so greatly. 

To-day’s work seemed like another step on the 
way Ito that high place which he meant to occupy 
some day. The class-stamp of the various homes 
in which he had spent his holidays between spells 
of Harrow and Cambridge had worked upon him 
more radically even than upon his sisters. Before 
he was fifteen he had begun to yearn for the possi- 
bility of that power which he saw his father wield- 
ing. An instrument only, strictly speaking, but an 
instrument on whose fine edge so much depended, 
and which at moments had to work automatically, 
so to say, unable to await the touch of the hand that 
guides it. 

Of his capacity for the work he did not doubt, 
nor seriously of his vocation. How should he, with 
the family chorus ringing in his ears, with the fam- 


92 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

ily eyes fixed upon him in an expectation that was 
so obviously hopeful? Were they not unanimous? 
No — ^not quite. Cousin Minna’s voice had, some- 
how, never exactly joined in the chorus ; which pro^ 
voked him all the more that he could not ascribe 
this abstention to want of sympathy. But Cousin 
Minna was abnormal, which usually stands for un- 
reasonable, and some of her ideas were distinctly 
dowdy. Even she had never told him that he was 
too stupid to be a diplomat; and he would not 
have believed her if she had. About that part of 
the matter, at any rate, he was serenely confident. 
The canker-spot of his character was, in truth, a 
certain vanity of intellect, hungrily on the alert for 
a field of display; and what field more grateful for 
the purpose than Diplomacy? Which more obvi- 
ously pointed out by family tradition? 

He had thrown himself upon it with all the verve 
of an intrinsically buoyant nature. Possibly he 
might make too spontaneous a diplomat — it was 
his danger — but he would never make a vacillating 
one. International difficulties he would tackle as 
joyously as he would a stiff hill-climb, and lift 
weights of ponderous discussion with as little ap- 
parent effort as the dumb-bells. His unlikeness to 
the traditional article stood rather in his favour. 
A certain breeziness of manner and openness of 
countenance comes in very useful at times when 
joined to the essential capacities; the quick insight, 
the necessary mental “pounce” upon the passing 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 93 

moment; above all, the indispensable self-command. 
Already was favour to be read in the eyes which 
looked on him from above — envy in those which 
viewed him from a kindred level. His little mark 
was made already. Remained the big one. If here 
and there some unanalysable — or, at any rate, um 
analysed — discomfort stirred somewhere in the 
background of his mind, it was not very hard to 
smother it under a load of work. Despite the 
sunny, hazel eyes, work had hitherto tempted him 
ever so much more than play — in contradistinction 
to his father, who had always found time to play 
beside his work — not always to the advantage of 
the latter. Nor did the playthings which his father 
had chosen exist for him — as playthings, anyway. 
No misogynist, oh, no I — and not a taint of the bear 
about him ; frankly pleased with the sight of a beau- 
tiful face, but, because the business of his career had 
hitherto kept his blood cool and his head clear, able 
to enjoy the spectacle without disturbance. He saw 
no reason to fly, as do those nervously aware of 
their susceptibility. Even he could allow himself 
an evening’s flirtation, just as the man who is sure 
of himself can safely indulge in that glass of brandy 
which to the habitual exceeder would be fatal. 
Cause for total abstinence there was none, and the 
less so as “the right sort of marriage” figured con- 
spicuously In his programme of the future. Judge, 
then, if Chrissie had been right in calling him 
“steady.” 


94 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

This blessed independence of the “sex” which 
had been his for twenty-five years he still believed 
in his possession ; for, although the Hungarian les- 
sons had been going on for three weeks now, Vin- 
cent was still serenely unaware of what had hap- 
pened to him on the day of his eruption into the 
morning-room of Eaton Place. That the lessons 
had become a delight he knew, indeed, but found 
nothing more easily explicable. Was not his prog- 
ress manifest? And were not affairs in Hungary 
developing in exact accordance with his calcula- 
tions? With the new Embassy at Budapest peep- 
ing out of the clouds, what wonder that the days of 
lessons in Eaton Place should have become red- 
letter days? 

It was one of those red-lette.r days to-day, which 
was partly the reason why Vincent was actually 
whistling softly to himself while he allowed the 
anchor-chains to rattle between the lines of the 
“memorandum.” The weather, too, might have 
helped to uplift his mood, for May had come into 
the land, and even pushed into the town ; and each 
time he lifted his head, St. James’s Park, young and 
green, and looking delightfully out of place here, 
seemed to* be smiling at him with a friendly under- 
standing. The breeze which, through the open 
window, pleasantly fanned his labouring brow and 
gently fluttered the sheaves of the legendary red 
tape (which, by the bye, is pink) hanging ready 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 95 

over the knobs of the drawer-handles, smelt not 
exclusively of soot. 

“Yes — that point may be considered settled.” 

Strangely enough, this sentence, framed in the 
secretary’s mind, did not apply to the intimidation 
of the South American State, but to the colour of 
the Hungarian teacher’s eyes. At first he had taken 
them for black, yet not all Irma’s discretion had 
been able to prevent his discovering that they were 
blue. 

‘‘It’s the size of the pupils that does it,” he de^ 
cided, even while dictating terms to the distant 
rebel; “that, and the shadow cast by the lashes. I 
wonder if I shall see many eyes like that when I am 
secretary at Budapest — or charge de affaires — who 
knows?” 

And yet theseithree weeks had removed no single 
social barrier between teacher and pupil. The table 
between them had even grown broader, the duen- 
na’s eagle eye, if possible, sharper— all the sharper, 
perhaps, for being disappointed in its expectations. 
Fraulein Hartmann’s professional manner seemed 
to be consolidating. Once only Vincent had heard 
her laugh — one of those rare moments at which she 
forgot that she was a teaching-machine and remem- 
bered that she was a human girl. It had been 
apropos of that ridiculous **Igen/* which particu- 
larly tickled Vincent’s sense of humour. 

“It’s got a family resemblance to a sneeze,” he 


96 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

declared. “Whoever can have invented it? Some- 
body with a cold in his head, I suspect.’’ 

It was then that Irma had laughed; and imme- 
diately Vincent had mentally agreed with his grand- 
mother that the girl could not have been poor for 
long. That laugh dated as plainly from better days 
as did the clothes. 

But the question of the '‘'‘I gen!* was not threshed 
out yet, it seemed. 

“I believe I’ve discovered why the Magyars need 
two syllables to their ‘yes.’ It’s because they take 
longer to acquiesce than other nations. Not fond 
of knocking under, as poor Francis Joseph must 
know well by this time. Am I right, Fraulein 
Hartmann?” 

“It may be. I have really never thought about 
it.” 

“Then think about it now, please, for I want in- 
struction. I maintain that your nation — that is, the 
nation which owns a quarter of you,” he corrected 
— “takes so long about saying ‘yes’ because it 
doesn’t like saying it, being by nature contradic- 
tious. Is that so?” 

“Well, I fancy they prefer saying ^Nem* on the 
whole,” admitted Irma, with a little imp of a smile 
pulling at the corners of her mouth, and with an- 
other little imp, which she had thought long dead, 
jumping up, like a jack-in-the-box, to take just one 
peep through the window of her eyes. Maybe it 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 97 

was at that moment that he had discovered their 
real colour. 

But these half-steps off the strict path of duty 
were brief and rare — and not one of them could af- 
ford Lady Aurelia the much-desired pretext for 
interference. Except in the handing of copy-books 
across the table, their hands had never so much as 
touched, since Fraulein Hartmann remained rigor- 
ously intrenched behind the foreign fashion of a 
mere bow ; and in the matter of the copy-books she 
was evidently not encouraging, as Lady Aurelia 
had guessed from an occasional quick contraction 
of the eyebrows. 

Last time there had been a rather annoying inci- 
dent connected with this very point — an inkstand 
brushed by Vincent’s sleeve, and which, toppling 
over, had sent a thin, black stream straight in Frau- 
lein Hartmann’s direction. She was on her feet in 
a moment, but not before the ink was dropping on 
to her grey tweed dress. 

“Oh!” she said, regarding it with vexation, as 
quick tears started to her eyes, oblivious of all else 
for the moment. 

Vincent was beside her already, volubly remorse- 
ful. 

“My fault! Quite my fault! What a prodig- 
ious ass I am, to be sure! Oh, Fraulein Hart- 
mann, I’m so sorry! But perhaps it won’t leave 
marks! Can you forgive me?” 

With a good deal less than his usual presence of 


98 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

mind he was daubing his handkerchief upon the 
stained skirt — generously spreading the fatal black 
in all directions. 

Irma moved back sharply, while at the same mo- 
ment his grandmother’s voice recalled him to both 
reason and propriety. 

“Unless you want to ruin Fraulein Hartmann’s 
dress completely, I should recommend you to ring 
for Sarah and leave the treatment tO' her. She can 
bring a sponge.” 

“It will be no use!” said Irma, in a tone whose 
almost tragic note sharpened his remorse tenfold. 
To her the incident was well-nigh tragic, since the 
grey tweed was the most serviceable of those gowns 
packed so hurriedly in Vienna at dawn of day. “The 
dress is spoilt.” 

“Then I’ll give you another,” said Vincent, again 
without reflecting. “At least,” he modified, 
warned by a swift uplifting of the dark head, ^^we 
will give you another — ^won’t we, granny? It’s 
a clear family debt, since this one has been immo- 
lated on the altar of the family’s interests.” 

“Thank you, I do not require any dress,” said 
Fraulein Hartmann, with the most direct look he 
had yet had from* her — (no, it must have been this 
moment, after all, that settled the question of the 
eyes) — and with a flame of anger before which he 
felt ready to go down into the dust. 

The sponge was brought, and, during the re- 
mainder of the lesson, restitution not again referred 



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POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 99 

to. But at the end Vincent lingered for a few words 
with his grandmother. 

“You know, granny, we can’t allow this,” he 
tackled her straightway. “You’ll have to invent 
some way of settling about that dress. Positively 
I can’t have Fraulein Hartmann suffering on ac- 
count of my awkwardness.” 

“In that case I should recommend more circum- 
spection in the future. For the present an applica- 
tion of lemon-juice is all I can suggest.” 

“The dress will never be the same again.” 

“Very likely not.” 

“She will have to buy a new one.” 

“I daresay she can afford it. The pay for these 
lessons is rather abno*rmal.” 

An impatient sniff was heard. The reminder that 
Fraulein Hartmann was actually in his pay grated 
against something or other within him. 

“She can’t be abnormally well off, anyway,” he 
said, in a tone which matched the sniff, “or she 
wouldn’t be giving lessons. Any one with half an 
eye can see that she’s been trained for quite other 
things. Just look at her carriage ! Just look at 
the turn of her head!” (all of which things Lady 
Aurelia had looked at exhaustively already). “A 
Reine en exile, that’s what she is. It’s enough to 
convert one back to fairy tales and to the disguised 
princess business. It’s always the real prin- 
cess that suffers most, you know. I’ll wager any- 
thing she couldn’t sleep with a pea in her bed, and 


100 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


there I’ve gone and put a whole handful of peas into 
her bed to-day. Dolt that I am ! Why, there were 
actually tears in her eyes !” 

Lady Aurelia made no remark; but, after one 
good look at her grandson, lowered her own eyes, 
perhaps to prevent any too easy reading of the reso- 
lution which at that exact moment touched the 
height of ripeness. 

That had been a week ago, for, owing to a pres- 
sure of work, he had been obliged, last Friday, to 
send an apology to Eaton Place, where, indeed, his 
face had not been seen since the last Hungarian 
lesson. A whole week without the acquisition of 
a new Hungarian word! Small wonder that his 
zeal should be even keener than usual. 

During the short drive the recollection of the 
ink-stained dress returned to throw its shadow on 
his pleasure. How discover a way of making good 
the loss, while sparing her susceptibilities? An 
anonymous gift would be too transparent, even sup- 
posing he had her address. Some pretext for rais- 
ing the price of her lessons ? Rather a prickly ques- 
tion, that, too. Would the old father be equally 
difficult to tackle? he wondered. He began to wish 
that he knew the father. 

For one moment after he had opened the door 
of the morning-room it seemed to him as though his 
wish were accomplished; but — as happens in mo- 
ments of accomplishment — the impression was 
joined to a disappointqient that was almost dismay. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE loi 


For in the mahogany-visaged, fiercely moustachioed 
and dishevelled-looking individual who rose at his 
entrance he was unable to recognise his conception 
of the sort* of father that Fraulein Hartmann was 
likely to have. This looked more like an elderly 
gypsy caught fresh upon a puszta, and stuffed any- 
how — without previous ablutions — into ready-made 
clothes two sizes too large for him. Upon his 
manly breast there flowed a concoction of purple 
and green which met the spectator like a square 
blow in the eye; and about his swarthy person there 
floated an odour of tobacco whose quality suggested 
the refuge of the pocket-handkerchief — the scented 
one, by preference. 

From this terrifying-looking personage Vincent, 
dumb with surprise, looked inquiringly at his grand- 
mother. 

“This is Mr. Heketes, who has kindly under- 
taken to rqiplace Fraulein Hartmann, prevented 
from pursuing her engagement.’’ 

Nervousness was a* thing to which Lady Aurelia, 
on principle, never owned, and toi which it was not 
on record that she had ever succumbed. Neverthe- 
less, Vincent, well acquainted with the grandmoth- 
erly symptoms, thought he detected a certain jar in 
the voice which, to his ear, spoke of a conscience not 
absolutely at rest. It took him but one moment to 
review the probabilities of the situation, another to 
recover his scattered wits — as Lady Awrelia knew 
by the characteristic squaring of the jaw. 


102 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“It is very obliging of Mr. Heketes,” he said, 
speaking from some suddenly reared pinnacle — 
presumably of ice-blocks, and with every inch of 
his physical height telling, in a way it had not told 
but a moment ago — “to have taken the trouble. 
But I am sorry he should have been inconvenienced 
for nothing. I was coming to tell Lady Aurelia 
that, in view of a very busy time in our department, 
I have decided to suspend the lessons for the 
present.” 

He made the announcement with a coolness as 
secure as though it were not the fruit of a moment’s 
inspiration. In her heart of hearts Lady Aurelia 
did unwilling homage to so unimpeachable an ex- 
hibition of “cheek.” 

Mr. Heketes’s complexion had darkened percep- 
tibly. 

“I — I haf bin incaged,” he muttered beneath his 
moustache. 

“Not by me. I much regret the inconvenience 
you have suffered through my relatives mistaking 
my intentions. Naturally you shall have full com- 
pensation for the loss of time. How much do I owe 
you for this morning’s excursion?” 

The black eyes began to roll ominously. “It 
wass to haf bin two times a week — ' — ” 

“How much do I owe you?” repeated Vincent, 
with an increase both of politeness and iciness, and 
producing his purse. 

“It wass to haf bin ten shillings a time, but ” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 103 

“You have upset other arrangements — I quite 
understand. Will a five-pound note cover your 
loss? Pm glad I happen to have one here. And 
now I should advise you not to lose another moment 
in making up for lost time.” 

Walking to the door, he opened it deliberately, 
his hard-shut mouth smiling in queer fashion. 

From the five-pound note in his hand Mr. Hek- 
etes glared back at Vincent. The combination of 
purple and green heaved in a way which betrayed 
the agitation of the bosom beneath. For a moment 
a jump straight at Mr. Denholm’s throat seemed 
not unlikely. With his eye he measured him, and — 
perhaps as a result of the measurement — decided 
to walk out through the open door. 

At the little scene Lady Aurelia had looked on, 
passive, and actually smiling. For the life of her 
she could not help enjoying Vincent in a rage. Such 
grand, clean-cut rages they were! — as different from 
the ordinary conception of rage as is white-hot iron 
from red. 

A glance into the future seemed to show her her 
grandson ushering out the representative of some 
inimical State with just this same “grand air.” 

The door closed upon Mr. Heketes, Vincent took 
one rather deep breath, as though after a deed ac- 
complished, and then turned to deal with his grand- 
mother. He found her chuckling. 

“That’s me you’ve put out of the door, you know. 


104 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Vincent — it isn’t poor Mr. Heketes at all. I wager 
anything you think it’s my fault, somehow.” 

“I certainly think this arrangement is your 
doing.” 

The voice was not so icy as the one used for Mr. 
Heketes, but, in its unlooked-for mildness, quite as 
eloquent. 

For all answer Lady Aurelia took from the table 
at her elbow an open note, which she handed across 
with something of a flourish. 

“Read that, and you will see the falseness of the 
accusation.” 

She watched him while he read, glad to think 
that neither street nor number figured above the 
date. After all, there was no particular need to 
furnish him with a clue to the recent teacher’s 
whereabouts. 

This is what Vincent read : — 


“May 2nd. 

“Dear Madam, 

“You will, I trust, excuse me if I tell you that I 
find myself unable to continue the lessons in your 
house. Mr. Denholm will, no doubt, be able to 
find another teacher. 

“A line releasing me from my engagement is 
requested. 

“Yours faithfully, 

“Irma Hartmann.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 105 

“Curt enough, eh?’’ queried Lady Aurelia, not- 
ing the change upon his face. 

“What did you do?” 

“Sent her the line requested, of course; what else 
could I do? and set about hunting for another Hun- 
garian teacher — a stiff job it was, too; and this is 
all the thanks I get for it!” 

She uttered a cackle of a laugh. 

“I don’t mean now — I mean before. What did 
you do in order to make her write this note? It’s 
the note of a pen* on who has been insulted.” 

“Insulted?” repeated the dowager, with a perfect 
command of countenance, marking another access 
of secret admiration; for this piercing of the mo- 
tives of his relatives promised well for the future 
reading of the mind of alien statesmen. “What 
earthly object could I have in insulting a person who 
was getting you on so nicely in the language ? How- 
ever deficient her experience, her aptitude is ob- 
vious,” was graciously added. As matters stood, 
her ladyship could afford to be magnanimous. “You 
know how anxious I am for you; to get on with 
your Hungarian.” 

“I know you are anxious^ — about various things.” 

“Which is no reason for trying to look like 
Irving just before he starts : 

“ ‘Look here upon this picture, and on this.* 

“Really, Vincent, you’re too tragical for the oc- 


io6 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


casion; and I haven’t either poisoned my brother 
nor married a murderer.” 

“Perhaps I am,” said Vincent, catching an abrupt 
sight of himself through her eyes. What was it 
all about, after all? A change of teacher. Quite 
harmless, if it had not been done behind his back. 
Of course, it was only the deception that riled him. 

“Pm anxious enough about your Hungarian to 
regret the very neat way in which you juggled that 
brown man out of the room. You weren’t serious, 
of course, about the giving up of the lessons?” 

“Of course not,” Vincent admitted, almost in his 
every-day manner. “But this is a matter of prin- 
ciple.” 

“The question is: Where are we to get another 
teacher from?” 

“The question is : Am I a free British subject or 
not?” asked Vincent, between a jest and a warning. 
“I object to having my teachers chosen for me — at 
least, sometimes I do. And, anyway, I couldn’t 
put up with that unwashed brigand. Neither his 
taste in neckties nor in tobacco falls in with mine. 
I’ll find a teacher for myself.” 

“Certainly, my dear, just as you like,” murmured 
Lady Aurelia, in so close a copy of the ex-Ambas^ 
sador that Vincent was betrayed into a laugh such 
as Irving had certainly never uttered. On the 
whole, she was well contented with her share of the 
victory. 

Qn the street again, Vincent stood for a moment 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 107 

on the pavement, reflecting. The friendly terms on 
which he had parted with his grandmother had not 
deceived either of them. Each had decided out- 
wardly to waive their cause of dissension, but each 
was aware that the cause was there, and conse- 
quently remained watchful. During that moment 
upon the pavement Vincent felt both wronged and 
baffled — also disappointed. Presently the sight of a 
vacant hansom, an enquiring countenance, an up- 
lifted arm, seemed to give him an idea. 

“Six, Fortague Street,” he said as he mounted. 
And to himself: “Pll see what Cousin Minna says 
to it.” 

“Six, Fortague Street,” was an address he fre- 
quently gave when in want either of comfort or 
merely of a listener. 


CHAPTER V 


''clean wine/" 

“The greatest beauty that London contains — 
that’s what my own Precious is; and as for brains 
and manners — ^nothing to come near them for ten 
miles around.” 

“Is that meant for me or for De Wet?” enquired 
Vincent, met upon the threshold of Miss Bennett’s 
little, box-like drawing-room by the above address; 
“because in the former case I agree.” 

Cousin Minna and De Wet were taking tea in 
tete-a-tete, she being a quite unremarkable spinster 
with her first bloom behind her — if, indeed, that 
rather opaque-looking skin had ever bloomed — he 
a very remarkable toy-terrier — in his own opinion, 
anyway, and presumably in that of the judges who 
had once awarded him a second prize at a provincial 
dog show. In the matter of deterioration of char- 
acter those judges had much to answer for — that 
prize having gone straight to De Wet’s ridiculous 
head. From being merely harmlessly conceited he 
had become offensively so; compliments touching 
his appearance were expected by him as much as a 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 109 

matter of course as he expected his dinner; nor — 
after the pattern of the wicked queen in the fairy 
tale, who daily interrogated her mirror as to* the 
supremacy of her beauty over all ladies in the land 
— was there any chance of his retiring to his basket 
for the night until assured anew by his mistress that 
not another dog in the metropolis was fit to hold a 
candle — or, perhaps more appropriately, a bone? — 
to him. By rights he ought to have been called 
Apollo; instead of which. South African news — 
rife at the time of his appearance on the scene — 
had caused him to be named De Wet; the fitness 
of the appellation being justified by Minna on the 
ground that the Boer general was practically invis- 
ible, and that the toy-terrier could not well be much 
smaller than he was without sharing this invisibil- 
ity. With a view to bringing him more up to date, 
there had lately been some talk 0/ rechristening him 
“Togo” ; but, considering that even the Serpentine 
at midsummer sent him into shivers of terror, the 
idea had been dropped as inappropriate. 

Minna looked at her cousin critically. 

“What is it you have come for? — to be scolded 
or patted on the back?” 

“As if you ever patted me on the back! I’m not 
a toy-terrier, alas I” 

“That means that you are aware of deserving a 
scolding. Give an account of yourself 1 It strikes 
me that I haven’t seen you for about a hundred 
years — not to speak to, anyway.” 


no POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“Minna, I’ve got a grievance.” 

“Sit down and tell me about it. But, first, please 
say a word to De Wet. Don’t you see that he’s 
just quivering to be taken notice of? I can’t con- 
ceive what induces people to trample upon an inno- 
cent dog’s feelings in this barbarous fashion. Just 
mention that he’s the flower of his generation, and 
it will be all right.” 

“And you think it right to pamper such vanity?” 

“A means of self-defence. Unless you put his 
mind at rest about his looks his eye will haunt us 
all the time we’re talking.” 

The toll of compliments and caresses having been 
somewhat impatiently paid, and the canine atom 
contentedly withdrawn to the hearthrug, Minna 
felt at liberty to turn her attention more exclusively 
to her cousin. 

“So you have a grievance. Against whom?” 

“Against granny. She’s been plotting.” 

“Does she ever do anything else? But I must 
ask again: against whom?” 

“Against me, of course ; that is to say, against my 
freedom of action. Why shouldn’t I take Hun- 
garian lessons — or ancient Celtic lessons, for the 
matter of that — from any teacher I choose?” 

“From which I gather that the plot is directed 
not against you, but against the Hungarian teacher. 
What’s she been doing to her?” 

“That I don’t know exactly. But she’s stung her 
into giving up her engagement. She denies it, of 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE iii 

course, but that makes no difference. Tust listen to 
this.” 

There followed a vivid sketch of the recent in- 
terview. When it came to the ejection of Mr. 
Heketes, Minna laughed in a way that always did 
Vincent good. She was generally described as a 
“comfortable” person, but her laugh distinctly held 
the very cream of this comfort. After the laugh, 
while he still spoke, the steady grey eyes left his 
face to wander to the fireplace, before which the 
morsel of canine flesh lay luxuriously stretched, 
gorged with flattery and bread-and-butter. 

“Of course, she suspects a flirtation. As if she 
hadn’t had a thousand proofs of my incombusti- 
bility!” 

“Yes, she knows you — ^but the girl ?” 

“The girl? Ha, ha! I tell you, Minna, she 
isn’t a girl at all — not in the ordinary flesh-and- 
blood sense, anyway; I’ve sometimes thought she’s 
made of wood. As prim as a Puritan, I tell you ; 
never gives one a chance of shaking hands with her, 
and never even looks in my direction, if she can 
help it.” 

There was a certain wrathfulness in the tone 
which did not escape Minna’s ears, though her eyes 
were still on the fireplace, and which failed to sur- 
prise her for the reason that she had happened to 
come in during one of the Hungarian.lessons. Miss 
Bennett and Lady Aurelia did not invariably agree 
upon all points, but in this instance Minna found 


1 12 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


herself quite appreciating the dowager’s motives. 
It had struck even herself as — to say the least of it 
— quaint that Vincent should be taking lessons from 
a person with all the makings of a professional 
beauty. 

“Why don’t you say anything, Minna? I 
thought you were going to help me?” 

“To another Hungarian teacher?” 

“Bother that ! I’ll beat one up fast enough. But 
what I would like you to do would be to give Frau- 
lein Hartmann a lift, somehow. She’s been hunted 
out of Eaton Place — whether directly or indirectly 
alters nothing — and losing two guineas a week so 
suddenly must make a difference to her; and, be- 
sides, her best dress is spoiled by me.^* 

“Do you want me to give her another?” 

“I shouldn’t advise you to try, unless you want to 
be withered up, same as I was last week. But 
couldn’t you procure her other lessons? German 
ones, of course^ — she knows both languages. It 
worries me to think of her possible situation — and 
she may have given up other chances for this lesson, 
don’t you see? It’s quite natural, surely, that I 
should feel rather guilty about it all, and anxious 
that she — and her father, of course — shouldn’t suf- 
fer on this account.” 

“Quite natural.” 

“And I’m sure she’s not used to being poor. If 
you had seen her ” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 113 

“I have seen her,” said Minna, in her very quiet- 
est manner. 

“To be sure! Well, don’t you agree with me 
that she’s not the sort of person one likes to think 
of as in a pecuniary fix?” 

“Not at all the sort of person. What is her 
address.?” 

Vincent looked discomfited, also slightly embar- 
rassed. 

“I haven’t got it. Granny managed everything, 
you know. Of course, the girls will have it, since 
the old man is their German master; but if I ask 
for it they’ll jump to all sorts of conclusions, of 
course.” 

“I see,” said Minna; and, together with a sus-- 
picious jerk at the corners of her lips, there fol- 
lowed a mental rider: 

“So that’s why I am to ask for it, I suppose. 
Well done, Mr. Diplomat!” 

Then aloud: 

“Well, there’s no use for the address until I have 
some pupils to suggest. I’ll look about me first.” 

“Thank you, Minna,” he said, with a fervour of 
which he was not in the least aware, though she 
was. “That’s a load off my conscience.” 

“So much the better. But, meanwhile, take my 
advice, and don’t attempt any unloading on your 
own account. I happen to understand your mo- 
tives, but other people mightn’t. I am quite sure it 


1 14 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

would be more — diplomatic, let’s say, to leave the 
negotiations to me.” 

She was looking at him straight now, with eyes 
which seemed to be absolutely transparent with 
truth ; and true they were, indeed, though it was a 
woman’s truth, which means only as much of it 
yielded up as is considered fit for male perusal. 

He acquiesced readily, conscious principally that 
the last thread between him and the Hungarian 
teacher was not irrevocably severed. Yet, even 
while he acquiesced, he frowned, for the stress laid 
upon a certain adjective grated. 

“What makes you say ‘diplomatic’ with that high 
and mighty sniff? Doesn’t it smell good?” 

“On the contrary; it’s just a trifle too heavily 
perfumed for my taste.” 

“With what? Roses? Violets?” 

“No — incense. The family seems to have been 
particularly busy over the burning of it lately. I 
understand from Chrissie and Cissy that your pros- 
pects are more dazzling than ever. In fact, I’m 
beginning to wonder how any one can look at you 
without getting sunstroke.” 

“Yow can, anyway. But, joking apart, things 
are looking up. This very day I was given one of 
the most thorny jobs a-going — the construction of a 
bomb with the appearance of a sweetmeat; and I’ve 
a notion that the chief will want to kiss me when 
he reads the draft. The other fellows had bungled 
it completely.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 115 
^‘Ah!” 

Minna was leaning back in her chair, rather laz- 
ily, it struck Vincent, throwing atoms of sugar to 
the atom of a dog on the hearthrug. 

“It means a step of the ladder, unless I’m mis- 
taken. I do believe now that I have every chance 
of the Roman secretaryship — en attendant Buda- 
pest. 

Minna threw another morsel of sugar without 
answering. 

“Minna, you’re enraging! Do leave that infer- 
nal dog alone. You might at least pretend to get 
up an interest in my career. You used to care about 
what happened to me.” 

“Are you and your career identical?” 

“Of course we are. But look here — I’d like this 
threshed out, if you please. Whatever you are, 
don’t be sphinx-like. It’s not the first time I’ve 
caught you sniffling. What’s there behind the sniff ? 
— that’s what I want to know. Do you really mean 
to say that you doubt of my success?” 

The question was put with a serious wonder 
which, in its supreme self-confidence, brushed the 
naive, 

“I don’t doubt about your getting to the top of 
the ladder, if that’s what you mean by success.” 

“Then what?” 

“You really would like me to say what I think?” 

“I think I should like to strangle you if you 
don’t.” 


ii6 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“Well, then, my inmost conviction Is that you’re 
about as well adapted to be a diplomat as a por- 
cupine is adapted to be a pocket-handkerchief.” 

Across the tea-table Vincent stared at his cousin 
with a countenance emptied for the moment of in- 
telligence by the force of sheer surprise. Thus 
stares a person who, without warning, receives a 
slap on the face, and has not yet had time to get 
angry. 

“Your similes are vigorous,” he conceded, as his 
senses returned to him, and looking all the grimmer 
for the sudden smile. “I’ll trouble you now for the 
grounds of your belief. Why am I not suited to 
be a diplomat? Nothing wrong with my thinking 
machine, mind,” he added, with a quite discernible 
note of warning in his voice. 

“No; you’re not too stupid — I agree there.” 
(“Thank you,” murmured Vincent, in an ironical 
sot to voce.) “You’ve got the mental qualifications, 
I think, but not the moral ones.” 

“Which means?” 

“Which means that though, as I have already re- 
marked, I quite believe in your getting to the top 
of the ladder, I think you will be paying too high 
a price for it.” 

“What price?” 

“I rather fancy it will be the price of self- 
respect.” 

Vincent pushed back his chair impatiently and 
got up. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 117 

“I thought It was that! YouVe given it me 
before, but never quite so plainly as this. The old 
fable of accredited Machlavellists I We’re a set 
of snakes, aren’t we? — plotting day and night for 
the undoing of our fellow-creatures ! Really, 
Minna, I have hitherto given you credit for being a 
grown-up person, but you seem to see bogeys as 
easily as does a nervous baby.” 

“If you’re not plotting day and night,” replied 
Minna, unmoved, “for the good of your country, 
and consequently for the undoing of other countries, 
then you’re not doing your duty — that’s all.” 

Vincent, hands in pockets, and looking several 
sizes too large for the room, was trying to find a 
clear space wherein to relieve his feelings by means 
of physical exercise — not successfully. He now 
turned with a movement of exasperation. 

“Out of your own mouth I condemn you I What 
more than his duty can a man do for the earning of 
self-respect?” 

“Nothing, il^hen It’s Fate that Imposes It. But 
In the case of a career the duty is self-chosen. Isn’t 
it?” 

“And no honest man would choose it, you mean ? 
That comes to saying that all the Corps DIplo- 
matlques of all the world are liars and Intriguers 
by nature, and that self-respect is a quality not to 
be found within the walls of an embassy?” 

Minna laughed again, as comfortably as ever. 

“There you go again! Much too headlong for 


ii8 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


a diplomat! / never said that the profession at 
large is devoid of self-respect — I merely hazarded 
the opinion that youy personally, would find some 
difficulty in preserving the article, under the cir- 
cumstances.’* 

“Your reasons, please!” fumed Vincent, turning 
and returning upon the eight square yards of clear 
space. 

“It’s this way it strikes me: some people have 
got the knack of keeping their private and their 
official morals in water-tight compartments; you 
haven’t got that knack. For these people there’s 
nothing degrading about telling official lies, or half- 
truths, or whatever you choose to call them, or mak- 
ing mental reservations, or shuffling and fencing 
and juggling with words generally, which in any 
diplomacy worth the name I hold tO' be an indis- 
pensable art. For you this same practice would be 
degrading, because you would be acting against 
your own inner convictions — violating some instinct 
within you which I don’t believe you’ll ever be able 
to kill. You were always rather a prig in the matter 
of truth-speaking, you know. Don’t I remember 
during those Easter holidays you spent at Merriton 
the half-astonished, half-scandalised face you used 
to make when mamma, giving her order for the 
afternoon, would say to the footman, ‘Not at home 
for any one to-day, mind, William.’ ‘But, Aunt 
Sophy, surely you are at home?’ you would object, 
wide-eyed. And when she told you she had a head- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 119 

ache and did not want to be disturbed: Then why 
not say you hav"e got a headache?’ Oh, you were 
killing, in your way. And the peaches — surely you 
remember the story of the peaches, Vincent?” 

The grunt which came from the perambulating 
figure could have stood equally for assent or the 
reverse. 

“You and Hal Thornley had been visiting the 
peach-houses — in the gardener’s absence, of course, 
though in my company. Just as we were success- 
fully withdrawing, the head man barred our pas- 
sage. I can hear his tones still, threatening, though 
respectful : 

“ ‘Now, I’m not going to do you young gentlemen 
the disgrace of turning out your pockets before the 
young lady; I’ll content myself if you will give me 
your word of honour as gentlemen that there’s no 
peaches in ’em !’ 

“ ‘I give you my word — not one I’said Hal, with- 
out a moment’s hesitation, and looking the gardener 
straight in the eyes ; whereas you first turned scarlet, 
shifted from one foot to the other, and finally, tear- 
ing your cap off your head, sent half a dozen 
peaches bobbing off your shoulders to the ground. 

“Previous experience had taught Hal that a cap 
is sometimes a safer cache than a pocket. You' had 
been quite pleased with the cleverness of the idea, 
but you couldn’t act upon it when it came to the 
scratch, even though it didn’t entail telling a lie — 
in words. But you could knock Hal down, and 


120 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


squarely, too, when he called you a tell-tale. In 
those days you were certainly not of opinion that 
Ha parole a ete donnee a Vhomme pour deguiser sa 
pensee^ ; and I don’t believe you’re any different 
now. You’re the sort of person who likes playing 
cartes sur table, as distinguished from those who 
enjoy having cards up their sleeve. You’re quite 
able to get them up your sleeve, and, if it happens 
to serve your end, I believe you’d do it; but your 
rather hyper-sensitive conscience would be protest- 
ing all the time, as I’m quite sure it protested 
against the white lie you told Mr. Heke — some- 
thing or other about giving up the lessons. No 
need to knock down my furniture, though” — as 
Vincent lunged blindly against a bookcase — 
“even if I have happened to hit a nail upon the 
head. Thafs where I see the danger to your self- 
respect. It’s a question of individuality, I main- 
tain. The same thing applies to the stage. For 
some women publicity is a moral degradation, for 
others not. Just the other day I was reading in the 
biography of some celebrity about the agonies she 
underwent each time she was called upon to make 
a spectacle of herself, and of her most sacred emo- 
tions. People seemed to think her a martyr — to 
me she appears despicable. The moment that she 
felt degraded she was degraded. The higher or the 
lower actress — that is, the one who is either carried 
out of her personality by her art, or the one who 
simply doesn’t rise to the level of scruples — is all 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 121 


right. It all depends upon whether you are doing 
the thing with conviction or against your conviction. 
I don’t know if I can make my meaning clear?” 

“You’re doing your best, anyway.” 

“I’ve heard enough about embassies to know 
that they’re nothing if not hotbeds of intrigue^ — 
political intrigue, of course, which the world has 
agreed to consider respectable. The crooked paths 
may be frightfully interesting, I’ve no doubt; but 
you’ve got tO' learn to turn and twist before you 
can follow them comfortably, and, somehow, I 
can’t quite see you wriggling round the corners. 
How do you like the idea, for instance, of having 
secret rendezvous with a spy anxious to sell his 
country into your hands, or of bribing some menial 
soul to let you have the pickings of a ministerial 
paper-basket, and that same evening sitting at the 
table of that same minister and exchanging with 
him smiling banalites?^'' 

“Those horrors don’t exist in English diplo^ 
macy.” 

“Don’t they? Then English diplomacy must be 
several lengths behind Continental. It’s no wonder 
we’re considered so naive. But never mind the 
paper-basket — that’s the small dirty work. It’s 
much bigger work, of course, to give solemn assur- 
ance of your — that is, of your country’s peaceful 
intentions, while behind the convenient screen that 
same country is arming to the teeth ; but is there any 
radical difference between the two jobs?” 


122 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“Minna, you’re horrible! I won’t listen to an- 
other word. Don’t imagine you’ll persuade me that 
I’m on the wrong tack. Why, this morning, while 
I was drafting that note, no fish in the sea could 
have felt more completely in its element than I did. 
Oh, no — I know I’m a born diplomat.” 

“And would the note be acted upon if disre- 
garded?” 

“Wouldn’t it just!” 

“Ah! that’s why you felt in your element. You 
knew it was no pose, but an over-board business, 
and you were only too glad of the chance of calling 
a spade a spade, instead of having to pretend that 
it was a walking-stick or a sun-shade.” 

Vincent frowned portentously. 

“Ridiculous! Why should I have gone into 
diplomacy if I didn’t feel that way?” 

“Because you’re in love with place and power, 
and because diplomacy — for family reasons — of- 
fered the line of least resistance.” 

“Power — ah, yes ! I don’t deny that. But can 
a man be in love with anything nobler? Minna, 
you don’t know the delight of feeling that you are 
master of your task, and master, consequently, of a 
whole lot of men. Pawns on the political chess- 
board — that’s what the mass of them are, and your 
hand to be the one to move them some day, per- 
haps — ^who knows ? The step from an embassy to 
a minister’s bench has been taken before now.” 

Minna’s eyes followed him as, faster than ever, 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 123 

he turned upon the clear space, smiling straight into 
his visions. 

“It’s not power in the abstract that you’re in love 
with, but with your personal power in the concrete. 
In fact, not to put too fine a point upon it, you’re 
suffering from a disease popularly known by the 
name of swelled head. One of its symptoms is an 
unquenchable thirst for flattery. You scoff at 
De Wet because of his greed for compliments, but 
you’re quite as bad, really.” 

“I get none from you, anyway.” 

“Because you’re not a toy-terrier, as you lately 
observed yourself. I’ve resigned all hope of up- 
rooting De Wet’s conceit, but I still occasionally 
dream of curing you. That’s another reason why 
I can’t gush over your choice of a path of life. 
There’s too much pomp and circumstance about an 
embassy, and there’s nothing so bad for a swelled 
head as pomp and circumstance.” 

Vincent, giddy with turning and returning, fell 
on to a chair, laughing a little ruefully. 

“A comfortable sort of person to come to for 
sympathy, in truth ! I don’t in the least understand 
what makes me come to you, Minna !” 

“I think I do. It’s because you get no incense 
here. Apt to become a little choky at times, you 
know. Instead, you get what the Germans call 
‘clean wine,’ and you can’t help approving the fla- 
vour of it — another proof that you’re a square peg 
in a round hole.” 


124 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“But you just said that my thirst for flattery was 
unquenchable?” 

“So it is; but man is a composite animal, you 
know, and the better part of you is not yet quite 
choked off by the other.” 

“Thank you. I think that is about as much 
‘clean wine’ as I can. carry for the present. Any 
objection to changing the subject?” 

“None whatever. I’ve another lying all ready. 
Do you know that Bob Rendall is in town?” 

“Is he? I knew that he was on his way home.” 

Minna stirred the dregs of her tea rather 
thoughtfully. 

“Has it ever struck you, Vincent, that that man 
is a hero?” 

“A hero? You’re beyond me, Minna. Where, 
in the name of all that is inappropriate, do you dis- 
cover anything heroic about old Bob?” 

“It’s drab-coloured heroism, if you like — hero- 
ism incogs I should call it ; but it’s the right article, 
all the same. Just think of the existence he leads 
and how he leads it! Have you ever heard him 
complain of any single thing in the world?” 

“Oh, he’s an excellent drudge, no doubt. No 
one but a drudge could stand that life.” 

To judge from the tone of his voice, the subject 
of Bob Rendall’s qualities did not grip Vincent’s 
attention very hard ; and almost in the same breath 
he said: 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 125 

“You won’t forget about Fraulein Hartmann, 
will you?” 

There was less danger of Minna forgetting than 
Vincent at all knew. 

Once more en tete-a-tete with De Wet, it was 
Fraulein Hartmann who filled her mind exclusively. 
One glimpse of her quite sufficed to awaken in any 
one with an aesthetic sense the desire for a second. 
After Vincent’s visit the desire became a longing. 

Women with broad, opaque faces and square, 
solid figures will rarely own to anything warmer 
than a cousinly sympathy for male relatives who 
are, moreover, their juniors by some five or six 
years. It is, therefore, probable that even en tete^ 
a-tete — not with De Wet, but with her own soul — 
Minna had never given the right name to her feel- 
ing for Vincent. Her sense of humour alone would 
have acted as a preventive. But her love (for that 
really was the right name, whether she knew it or 
not) did not rejoice in the orthodox blindness at- 
tributed to that passion, but was, on the contrary, 
rather inconveniently far-seeing — quite alive to 
certain defects of construction in its object; which 
was, perhaps, as much the reason of its having 
awakened no response as was the plain face itself. 
As for hope, she had never even glanced in that 
direction. Here, too, her sense of humour had 
stepped in savingly; and what between this and 
common sense, and, perhaps, also an absence of pas- 
sion in her nature, she certainly could lay no claim 


126 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


to unhappiness. The future without Vincent might 
be a little grey, but it would not be coal-black. It 
was not her future she was anxious about, but his. 
She, too, had a “right sort of marriage” In her mind 
for him, but not exactly the same sort as had Lady 
Aurelia. Sometimes she would wonder how long 
Vincent’s Immunity from woman would last, and 
whether, when It ceased. It would be his head or his 
heart that carried the day. Until now she had 
watched in vain. To-day, for the first time. It had 
occurred to her that possibly that Immunity had 
reached Its limit. As she sat alone In her tiny draw- 
ing-room the desire to know a little more about the 
first girl who seemed to have made something like 
an impression upon Vincent grew keen, perhaps 
only out of a sort of jealous curiosity. Of after- 
thought there was, so far, none in her mind. Even 
to her “dowdy” notions a paid teacher appeared 
too many miles below Vincent; but the curiosity 
was not to be gainsaid. And, besides. It was a meas- 
ure of prudence. Only by her promise to play Prov- 
idence to the Hartmanns could she hope to keep 
Vincent from taking the role of Providence into his 
own hands. And that must, at all costs, be avoided. 
It would not be fair upon the girl. 

“But she certainly is a beauty,” said Minna, 
aloud, to the fireplace; upon which De Wet, to 
whose consciousness the familiar expression pene- 
trated, wagged his thread of a tall in his sleep. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE '^MURRICLE^' 

The cold lunch was on the table — In Irma’s hand 
Gabrielle’s last letter. Her upper lip curved scorn- 
fully as she read, for among the qualities laid bare 
by the moral earthquake of last February was a 
sort of haughty intolerance for anything that fell 
short of the highest standard of action. Nothing 
but first-class sentiments and acts could hope to 
appeal to her nowadays. It was this which had di- 
vided her from her mother, and which, logically 
speaking, ought to have divided her from her 
father, too; only that here its force was counter- 
acted by a very passion of pity — ^just as one law of 
nature Is liable to be paralysed by another, of which 
the gruesome exhibition known as “looping the 
loop” furnishes the most telling object-lesson. In 
Gabrielle’s case the pity had not sufficed to paralyse 
the Intolerance, perhaps because, in spite of Mrs. 
Harding’s private fortune having proved sufficient 
to ward off the dreaded necessity of active bread- 
winning, Gabrielle pitied herself so persistently. 
Out of her sister’s letters it was not hard for Irma 


127 


128 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


to evolve the pose adopted by her mother — that of 
a social martyr whose life is forever galled and 
blighted by the chain which binds her to a criminal. 
It was she herself who insisted most loudly on the 
criminality. It was not in whitewashing her un- 
fortunate husband, it was in blackening him yet 
further, that she saw a hope of at least partial so- 
cial salvation. The more public the repudiation of 
the crime and the man, the less chance did there 
seem of being identified with either. The spoiled 
child of former days, received back into the bosom 
of her forgiving family, readily joined her voice to 
those who had begun by saying, “I told you so!” 

At the sound of her father’s ring Irma crumpled 
up the letter in her hand. There were things hinted 
at there which she would rather keep from the 
bankrupt’s eyes. 

“Papa, what is it?” she asked, with a pang of 
alarm, for upon his tired face fresh failure was 
written. 

“Just the usual thing; another lesson gone.” He 
sat down, smiling rather forlornly. 

“Which lesson?” 

“The one at Eaton Place. It seems that the two 
young ladies have made such marvellous progress 
under my tuition that they are now in the happy 
position of being able to do without it. Thus Lady 
Aurelia informed me this morning, wreathed in 
smiles — or in something that was meant for smiles, 
I suppose, though teeth are usually considered an 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 129 

essential part of the performance. It seems rather 
difficult to hit off the right medium with one’s pu- 
pils, doesn’t it? If they don’t get on fast enough 
you’re told that you have evidently not got the 
knack, and if they get on too fast, then they can 
do without you. Result in both cases: the sack.” 

He laughed as desolately as he had smiled, while 
Upon his unrestful face the fine network of wrinkles 
played into a succession of patterns. 

Irma kept her lips tight-closed for several mo- 
ments, not because she had nothing to say, but be- 
cause she was afraid of saying too much. She 
thought she understood — ^better than her father 
did. It was not because the Miss Denholms were 
getting on too well with their German that her 
father had to be dismissed — it was because he was 
her father. The scene which had led to her own 
evacuation of the house in Eaton Place started up 
again in her memory — not differing vitally in detail 
from that which Vincent’s knowledge of his grand- 
mother had helped him mentally to reconstruct. It 
had not been a violent scene, but it had admirably 
fulfilled its purpose. Lady Aurelia never wasted 
power, and she had accurately measured the degree 
of susceptibility of the object to be operated upon. 
Where an insinuation sufficed, why insult? When 
a pin-prick served, wherefore make a mess with a 
dagger? 

The day on which Vincent had been obliged to 
miss his lesson had furnished the welcome oppor- 


130 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

tunity. Behind the shield of a friendly, almost 
motherly warning touching the necessity of pru- 
dence for girls in her position, it had been quite 
easy to plant the shaft. The ink-stained dress, too, 
had come in very usefully ; since, obviously, a young 
man might be suspected of wishing to seize on the 
pretext for a gift, which, in Fraulein Hartmann’s 
own interest, she would earnestly advise her not to 
accept. A certain degree of admiration on his side 
was surmised, was, indeed, pronounced to be un- 
avoidable, considering the Fraulein’s looks — which 
Lady Aurelia handsomely acknowledged — ^but 
since the difference of station placed honourable 
intentions out of the question, her ladyship consid- 
ered that she was only doing her duty in putting 
Fraulein Hartmann on her guard against the wick- 
edness of the world. No girl of her culture would 
like being made a fool of — ^would she? 

The result, perfectly foreseen, was that Irma, 
having flung back Lady Aurelia’s advice in her 
face, left the house in a rage against the grand- 
mother, which naturally embraced the grandson, 
and, having torn up three notes in succession, at 
last produced one whose cold reticence had been 
considered fit even for Vincent’s inspection. 

Accept his gifts, indeed! What did that hag 
take her for? At every fresh reminder the tremor 
of rage shook her anew. It came over her again 
now, as in the latest development she recognised 
the same hand. A measure of prudence, clearly. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 13 1 

So long as her father frequented the house the con- 
nexion could not be considered finally severed. 
How disgusting the world was ! Could they never 
let one forget for a minute that one was a woman 
and that there are such things as men in the world ? 

To her father, fearing to alarm him, she had 
told a cock-and-bull story touching the cessation of 
the Hungarian lessons; and now — for the brave 
front must be maintained — she talked gaily, though 
slightly at random, about the pressure of the “sea- 
son,” which naturally reacted unfavourably upon 
the acquisition of languages, and of a new agency 
which promised marvels in the way of employment. 
Finally she sent him off to the one afternoon lesson 
that still remained him, not quite so despondent as 
he had come in. So long as he was in the room she 
kept it up. Once alone, she sat down with her face 
in her hands, a prey to one of the rare fits of dis- 
couragement in which she occasionally indulged. 
Around her the silence was broken only by the 
strumming of a wheezy piano on the first floor, and 
by the flow of Mrs. Martin’s observations, which 
had a habit of rising chronically from the bowels 
of the earth. The hum of traffic in Cromwell Road 
seemed like the voice of a river sweeping past the 
foot of the deserted street. 

With one leg jammed into the frame of the dim 
mirror abov^e the mantelpiece, Vindobona sprawled 
against her own image. By this time the pink skirt 
had absorbed so much London soot as to be no 


132 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

longer very pink, and, owing to the frequent appli- 
cation of Pattie’s thumb, the flat nose showed a 
chronic smudge ; but, for all that, the little doll was 
as nimble as ever — though to-day her antics were 
unmarked, overshadowed by anxious thoughts. 

Occupation had been failing lately, and some- 
thing else had been failing, too, as Irma could not 
help seeing — her father’s health. Even to her in- 
experienced eyes he looked like a man whose physi- 
cal power of resistance is broken as well as his men- 
tal. It would require rest, care, comfort; instead 
of which he had to tramp the streets in search of 
bread. Oh, it was bitter ! And probably it would 
grow bitterer yet. Want, which had as yet kept at 
a decent distance, seemed to be drawing indecently 
near. Already the first illusive gloss was off the 
novelty of the experiment, just as the freshness was 
gone from the relics of her Viennese wardrobe. 
Even her boots were all worn through from much 
treading of the pavement, and English boots were 
so terribly expensive I 

A hundred sordid details rose to her mind, and 
each detail added a new sting to “the thought of 
the morrow.” One of those panics was upon her 
in which she always saw herself poised upon a high 
rock, with an abyss at her feet. Instinctively she 
shut her eyes. Was there nothing to clutch? No 
hand to steady herself by? Where find comfort? 
At the new agency, perhaps? 

As she formed the thought she got up. Yes — 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 133 

she must go to the office. The mere thought of 
giving up the battle was ridiculous. 

An hour later she had left the agency — without 
the comfort expected. The chances of employment 
were even smaller, the fee greater, than she had ex- 
pected, and the stare of the young man in charge 
had been distinctly impertinent. The sensation of 
being a straw upon the torrent of life had seldom 
been so strong upon her — that sensation which, 
during the first weeks of her London life, had filled 
her with an unreasoning terror, not of the hurrying 
crowds, but of losing hold of her own identity. One 
human atom seemed to be so utterly irrelevant to 
the bulk of the human monster filling the streets. 
It appeared incredible that each should possess its 
own consciousness, its own hopes and fears, and 
joys and troubles. The terror was upon her again 
to-day, perhaps because it was a Saturday crowd, 
that is swollen to a Saturday size and in the ortho- 
dox Saturday hurry. The red and yellow and green 
posters with the latest news of the Russian fleet’s 
progress towards its doom, which she had seen that 
morning laid out neatly upon the pavement, with 
little mounds of dirt acting as paper-weights upon 
the corners, had long since been stamped to rags 
by horses’ hoofs and gone to make bright the rub- 
bish-heaps. At the street corners the ’bus conduc- 
tors sang their siren’s song as fervently as ever did 
mermaid luring voyagers to her cave — shamelessly 
making eyes at every likely looking old lady, until 


134 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

some breathless question as to the vehicle’s destina- 
tion abruptly extinguished all personal interest. 

“Light Blue’s yer colour,” would be all the dis- 
appointed representative of Dark Blue might con- 
descend to utter before turning his back, if, indeed, 
he condescended so far. 

To-day the transpiring tempters’ songs passed 
unheeded by Irma, since, alas! there was no hurry; 
she might as well spare her pennies. No pupil 
waited for her anywhere. With a slower step than 
usual she threaded her way down Brompton Road, 
half-dazed by the crowd, and yet only dimly aware 
of it. 

“Only a penny, lidy!” 

Irma turned her head, to meet the dog-like gaze 
of a woman in a battered sailor hat, with a shriv- 
elled baby in one hand and a bunch of dusty boot- 
laces in the other. At the same time she became 
aware of a sound close enough to penetrate through 
the rush of the traffic, and infinitely more soothing. 
She discovered that she was straight in front of 
what she knew to be the Brompton Oratory, though 
she had never set foot within it. A simple con- 
nexion of ideas sent her thoughts straight to Pattie, 
for it was Pattie who had told her that benediction 
at the Oratory was “that beautiful you ’ad to cry, 
whether you wanted or no.” And other things, too, 
Pattie had told her, on the day on which she had 
discovered the slavey transfixed with astonishment 
before the small silver crucifix which Irma had hung 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 135 

at the head of her bed. The attitude resembled 
that in which she had been surprised before “Win- 
derboney,” only that here the grin was replaced by 
a deep gape of wonder. 

“Oh, miss, is it a fact? You are one of us? 
Holy saints, what a treat !’^ 

The face she turned towards Irma was almost 
cut in two by the breadth of the grin. 

“What do you mean by ‘one of us’?” 

“Why, a Roman Catholic, to be shure! — ^what 
they call a Papist in these parts. It’s the thing 
Mrs. Martin always ends with when she’s used up 
all the other words. You wouldn’t have that crooci- 
hx there if you weren’t. Oh, the ghrand treat ! the 
ghrand treat 1 I might ha’ known it by your sweet 
looks. And shure Mrs. Martin will ’ave to ’unt 
for a new word now ; how ever could she abuse me 
for bein’ what her own lodger is ? Oh, it’s a blessed 
thing, miss, isn’t it, to belong to the blessed 
Church?” 

“Yes, of course,” said Irma, a little hurriedly. 
Though she had learnt her Catechism all right and 
undergone all the indispensable ceremonies, she had 
never felt acutely conscious of the blessing to which 
Pattie referred. In the social circles in which the 
Hardings had moved the mention of religion in 
everyday life would have been considered as inde- 
cent as its open denial. You went to mass Sunday 
if the weather was fine, partly because other people 
went, and partly as a tacit protest against growing 


136 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Socialism. Otherwise you left those things in a 
respectful seclusion. Even the silver crucifix — the 
orthodox offering of every Austrian mother to her 
daughter on the occasion of her first communion — 
owed to a vaguely sentimental value the fact of 
being there at all. It required Pattie’s unexpected 
delight to make Irma even very clearly aware of 
its presence in her room. It was then that Pattie 
had begun to gush about the Oratory, and in a burst 
of confidence had pulled out from below her dress 
a piece of twine upon which were suspended about 
half a dozen medals of different sizes and various 
metallic compositions. Ere this Irma had won- 
dered what it was that jingled so about Pattie ; now 
she considered the mystery penetrated. 

“If it wasn’t for these,” Pattie told her, “I’d 
never get through the day at all. Here’s St. 
Florian — the one against fire, you know. It’s he 
who don’t let the linen get singed when it’s hung 
to dry. And here’s the blessed St. Anthony, who 
helps me to find the things I’ve lost; and ” 

“And is there no saint to mend those you have 
broken?” asked Irma, not sorry for the opportunity 
of airing a little irony — a wasted effort, needless 
to say. 

“It would need a murricle to do that, miss, you 
know,” said Pattie, with the sincerest of sighs. 
“And Father O’Donovan says the time for murri- 
cles is past. But they do kind o’ shove you up, 
somehow. And when things are worse than usual 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 137 

— such as when I broke the washing-basin In the 
best bedroom — and the medals don’t seem enough, 
I take a dose of the organ at the Horatory first time 
IVe the chance. It do drive all Mrs. Martin’s 
words clean out of my head, it do. And that stuff 
they burn at benediction makes me feel so wunner- 
ful good, with Its holy smell. I’d like to keep 
enough of It to last me the week; and I keep sniffin’ 
it up until I’m bound the pelple beside me must 
think I’ve a cold In the head.” 

At the recollection the teeth reappeared In full 
force. 

It was this that came back to Irma when the 
woman with the baby roused her from her ab- 
straction. 

“Makes you cry, whether you want to or no.” 

On the whole, Irma would rather like to cry. It 
would at least be a change from the chronic gulping 
down of unpleasant emotions. Things were un- 
doubtedly “worse than usual.” Should she try 
Pattle’s remedy? After a moment’s irresolution 
she turned quickly towards the steps. 

The tears promised by Pattle did not come, held 
back, perhaps, by the sense of publicity; but some- 
thing else came instead — a gradual and yet swift 
appeasement, which descended upon her spirit, with- 
out reasoning and without apparent reason, as a 
calm once fell upon the lake of Genesareth at the 
voice of One who bade the elements be still. As 
she knelt among the crowd, with the strains of 


138 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Tantiim Ergo rolling past her ears, forming no 
articulate prayer, for none would come to the un- 
practised lips, Irma knew of no ground why the 
future should look less black than live minutes ago; 
she knew only that all these people about her had 
come to seek what she was seeking, and that. In the 
sense of community, a little of the weight had been 
lifted. Perhaps, after all, there was something to 
clutch at. These worshippers seemed to think so, 
at any rate. It was all very Illogical, of course, and 
the merest tyro In the school of modem thought 
could have told her that this was but a natural effect 
upon her senses of music and lighted candles; but, 
for all that, it was comforting. Here, where Pattle 
had so often laid In her fresh store of courage and 
of the “holy smell,” Irma, tooi, groped blindly for 
courage. It would be something to have Pattle’s 
courage, beside which her own seemed to herself 
to shrink Into Insignificance. She had at least the 
consciousness of a high duty performed, the rapture 
of a sacrifice — ^but what had Pattle if she had not 
this? “A mother, miss?” she had once said, in an- 
swer to a question of Irma’s. “Yes, I suppose I 
’ad a mother, same as other people, but I don’t 
rightly rec’lect any one ever belongin’ to me.” It 
was conceivable that that rough, red hand might 
require something very visible, very tangible, to 
clutch at. In this light, even the bunch of jingling 
medals became a trifle less ludicrous. Undoubtedly 
Pattle had a worse time of It than she had. And 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 139 

so probably had that woman outside with the baby, 
to whom she now remembered with a pang that 
she had given nothing. Would she be there still? 
she asked herself anxiously ; and when, a few min- 
utes later she found her at her post, rejoiced with 
a pleasure that seemed quite out of proportion with 
the cause. The wearer of the sailor hat got more 
than merely the pennies saved from the ’bus, and 
got it, too, without any diminishment of her stock 
in trade; for, after one glance at the bootlaces, Irma 
decided that, after all, she had not sunk quite so 
low as that yet. 

“I wonder if it has never occurred to her to 
strangle the baby with the bootlaces ?” Irma mused, 
as she pursued her homeward way, with the image 
of the horrible little withered face dancing before 
her mind’s eye. “At first sight it would seem the 
most appropriate use to put them to.” 

And then she remembered the mother’s eyes, and 
wondered how many things it had taken tO' give 
them that dog-like look. And so it happened that 
she went home thinking not exclusively of her own 
difficulties. 

Upon the table there lay a letter which the four 
o’clock post had brought. In a large, legible hand 
she was informed that Miss Bennett would be much 
pleased if Fraulein Hartmann would appoint an 
hour at which it would be convenient for her to 
call, in order to settle about some German lessons 
which Miss Bennett wished to take. 


140 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Irma read the note twice over, and then burst 
out laughing, a little excitedly. It almost looked, 
didn’t it, as if one of those “murricles,” which even 
Pattie admitted to be out of date, had actually come 
to pass ? 

“But who the dickens is Miss Bennett?” thought 
Irma, “and how the dickens is she aware of my 
existence ?” 


CHAPTER VII 

THE ^'outing/’ 

“Minna, IVe just looked in, in order to ” 

Barely within the doorway he stood still, doubting 
the testimony of his eyes. 

Meanwhile, from beside a table covered with 
books and with writing apparatus, Miss Bennett 
rose, a little hurriedly. 

“Ah, it’s you, Vincent? How stupid of Wilson 
not to turn you off ! I told her to leave us undis- 
turbed during the lessons. You know Fraulein 
Hartmann, of course ; she is helping me to work up 
my German. The rust is ever so much thicker 
upon it than I imagined.” 

The variation from Minna’s usual placidity 
amounted — for her — almost to flurry. 

“I am delighted to hear it,” said Vincent, accom- 
plishing a bow ; though whether the delight applied 
to the rust or to the removal of it was not made 
evident. 

The bow was returned — from an almost arctic 
distance; and then Irma, wondering whether he had 
noted and drawn any false conclusions from her 


142 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

first flush of pure astonishment, began to gather to- 
gether the books. 

“It is scarcely worth while beginning a new dic- 
tation to-day, is it. Miss Bennett?” 

Minna’s answer was rather eager: “No, I think 
not. You would like to be released, I am sure. I 
shall expect you on Monday.” 

Irma half got into one of her gloves, and then 
looked about for her parasol. 

“I will hold it for you while you put on your 
gloves, if you will allow me,” said Vincent, dex- 
terously possessing himself of the article. But the 
demand in the gesture of her outstretched hand only 
became more imperative. 

“Thank you — I will put them on as I go down.” 
She had almost reached the door, when he said, 
with a fair though spasmodic imitation of jocu- 
larity : 

“You haven’t told me yet how you are satisfied 
with your pupil?” 

“Which pupil?” 

“Miss Bennett. She is my cousin, you know, so, 
of course, I feel responsible for her progress.” 

“No, I didn’t know,” said Irma, and, making 
some prim little remark about “suitable improve- 
ment,” she went out. 

When Vincent turned back he found Minna 
looking at him with recovered composure and some 
symptoms of severity about the set of her mouth. 

“Now, Vincent, please let it be clearly understood 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 143 

that this is the last time you walk in upon my Ger- 
man lesson.” 

“How can I help walking in upon it when you 
operate in this underground fashion? Did I as 
much as know that you were having German les- 
sons?” 

Vincent, looking utterly unsnubbed, had settled 
himself comfortably in a chair. That his humour 
had by no means suffered from the reproof could be 
inferred from the fact that unsolicited — though as 
gingerly as though he were handling a new-laid egg 
— he lifted De Wet to his knee. 

“So ignorant was I of your movements that I 
turned in here with the express purpose of inquir- 
ing whether you had found any pupils for Fraulein 
Hartmann.” 

“It was because at this dissipated season I 
couldn’t find any that I sacrificed myself, though 
you know as well as I do that I have about as much 
use for German as for air-balloons. I’m not des- 
tined for diplomacy, you know. It was your de- 
scription of the forlorn pair of foreigners which 
pushed me to do it; so the least you could do would 
be to let me get as much of my money’s worth out of 
the lessons as my anti-linguistic talents permit of.” 

“Minna, you’re a brick!” was all that Vincent 
observed, as he very gently stroked the toy-terrier’s 
ears. 

“If by that you mean that I’m more blindly trust- 
ful in human nature than granny is, then you’re 


144 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

mistaken. Good-looking girls having to earn their 
own bread have quite enough to cope with without 
their ideas being unsettled by unnecessary notice. 
And this girl is more than merely good-looking. 
Why, I believe” — and Minna relaxed a little — 
“that since she comes here Dc Wet’s nose has been 
distinctly out of joint. If there were beauty-shows, 
instead of only dog-shows — ^but never mind that. 
There’s another point: The girl is not only good- 
looking, she is also good.” 

The straight look she gave him was one of those 
defensive looks — not of her person, but of her sex 
— with which even the plainest woman arms herself 
at moments. 

“I know she is,” Vincent said, with a note al- 
most of gratitude in his voice. And he knew it, too. 
How? Let any young man who has sat opposite 
to a girl half a dozen times with only a table be- 
tween them answer the question. Any one short 
of an idiot — or possibly a saint — ^will within that 
space — and be it under the eyes of ten watchful 
chaperones — have formed a probably correct idea 
as to the moral value of the girl. 

“For which reason,” summed up Minna, with a 
return to her judicial manner, “I shall expect you 
to shun my door between four and five on Fridays.” 

“And Mondays,” completed Vincent, but not 
aloud, and with a gaiety of heart which the pro- 
hibition had entirely failed to damp. 

“All right, Minna; I’m not dreaming of unset- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 145 

tling any one’s Ideas. But It’s a comfort to think 
that — that the old father Is not In any want. I ran 
against him once in Eaton Place. — ^looks awfully 
ill and stricken^ somehow. Seems to be walked off 
his legs, too. They live miles off, I suppose?” 

“Somewhere beyond Brompton,” said Minna, 
not considering it a case for precision. 

“That means a cut through the Park,” ran on 
the inner monologue. Indeed, considering the re- 
spective positions of Fortague Street and Brompton 
Road, that cut seemed unavoidable. 

Upon Minna’s face as she tidied up the copy- 
books there lingered a slight frown. It had not 
been necessary to tell Vincent that compassion for 
the foreigners had not been the only motive of her 
action. Neither did she wish to betray that curios- 
ity, being satisfied, had given way to a personal 
interest which strengthened with each new meeting. 
Already she was beginning to understand that it 
might be difficult for any young man — even such 
a young man as was Vincent — to shake off an im- 
pression received from this vivid and strong indi- 
viduality. The recognition could not but Increase 
a certain uneasiness of conscience. A slightly guilty 
feeling towards the family in general shadowed 
her. Prudence, Indeed, seemed to point out a quick 
severing of the connexion, a vanishing back of the 
disturbing atom into the whirlpool of London as 
the only absolutely safe course. But exactly in 
measure as she recognised the danger grew her de- 


146 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

sire for further exploration of the atom which had 
achieved what so many much more “desirable” 
atoms had failed to achieve. Lady Aurelia, as it 
was, had raised her eyebrows to invisible heights 
over Minna’s German lessons — but Minna was the 
one member of the family whom she had never 
been able to control. 

Meanwhile, Irma, with a slight upward tilt of 
her chin, was pursuing exactly the way surmised by 
Vincent. Twice a week, lately, her homeward road 
had afforded her glimpses of the season’s glories, in 
the shape of smoothly rolling carriages, of flashing 
harness, of hats and frocks, at which her eyes gazed 
as might those of Peri at the lost Paradise. 

To-day she did not see these things. The sur- 
prise of Vincent’s appearance was still upon her. 
Though having recognised Miss Bennett as the 
lady visitor seen once at Eaton Place, the relation- 
ship was a revelation, and awoke certain reflections 
not unrelated to misgivings. Those “intentions” 
so insultingly hinted at by Lady Aurelia might, 
after all, not be a mere hallucination of her senile 
brain. It was this thought which had stiffened her 
in Vincent’s presence, and it was this which had 
tilted up her chin and lit a warlike spark in the 
shadow of her eyes. Make a fool of her, indeed ! 
Let him just try! His intrusion to-day, and the 
well-simulated surprise, was the first move in the 
game, no doubt, and the next would be an “acci- 
dental” meeting. Who knows whether he was not 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 147 

following her already? Irma’s ears strained ner- 
vously for every step in the rear which bore any 
suspicion of hurry. When she found herself at the 
other side of the park, unmolested, she fetched a 
deep breath, and, but that dignity forbade, would 
have dearly loved to cast a glance backwards, for 
pure curiosity’s sake. 

Friday’s lesson — to which she could not but look 
forward with a certain trepidation and with doubts 
which cast their shadow even upon that nice, kind 
Miss Bennett — passed with a reassuring eventless- 
ness. But this time on the homeward way a start 
was not spared her, for, half-way along the walk 
she followed, her eyes picked out from among the 
advancing group a single, frock-coated figure which 
she knew, and approaching at a pace which denoted 
leisure. 

“Now it is going to begin !” she said to herself, 
while some little imp of excitement leaped to her 
throat, and instinctively she locked her teeth and 
took a firmer grip of her parasol handle, as though 
of a weapon. It was only after their ways had 
crossed — ^vdth a good three feet between^ — that both 
her fingers and her teeth relaxed. Beyond a quickly 
inquiring glance in her direction nothing had hap- 
pened, not even a conventional elevation of his hat 
— a neglect which struck her as offensive to mere 
civility until — several paces beyond the spot of 
meeting — it flashed upon her that this was not 
Vienna, and that the initiative of recognition had 


148 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

lain with her. She gave an irritated little bite to 
her lip. “I do wish they would have one rule for 
bowing in all countries,” her angry thought ran. 
There was no object, of course, in direct rudeness, 
and might give the ridiculous impression that she 
was afraid. Well, she would make up for it next 
time — if there was a next time. Scarcely likely 
that their paths should cross again. 

When the unlikely thing came to pass, which it 
did, not on the occasion of the next, but of the next 
but one lesson in Fortague Street, Irma marshalled 
all her social powers with the object of producing 
a bow which should satisfy civility, while absolutely 
discouraging approach. It was a question for very 
nice balancing, and, if the truth must be told, the 
critical blend had been practised at various odd mo- 
ments before that same dim mirror in which “Vin- 
dobona” had been steadily admiring her charms for 
three weeks past. “Politely forbidding” was the 
combination she aimed at. When the moment came 
it turned out more forbidding than polite; and, 
whether for this or for any other reason, there were 
no signs of approach either on this or on any other 
of the occasions on which, in her bihebdomadal 
crossings of the park, the unavoidable salutation 
was exchanged. No more than the orthodox 
straight uplifting of the faultless hat, with scarce 
so much as a quick turn of the eyes in her direction. 
After the third or fourth repetition of the perform- 
ance Irma began to laugh at herself. Here she was 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 149 

going about armed to the teeth against the possible 
“intentions” of a person who very evidently had 
no intentions at all, and who, plunged as he, of 
course, was in the vortex of London society, had 
probably only the vaguest consciousness of her exist- 
ence. There was a note of irritation, in her laugh; 
and no wonder, since she was feeling mildly ridicu- 
lous. It was all that yellow-faced old woman’s 
fault for striking a false alarm. Even in these 
chance encounters she would doubtless find fresh 
fuel for suspicion. Were they actually pure chance? 
The question would occasionally obtrude, only to 
be pushed aside. What could it matter, since, clear- 
ly, the diplomat was triumphantly innocent of any 
desire of “making a fool” of her? So much the 
better! — ah, yes, of course — ever so much the 
better. 

By the time Irma had reached this eminently sat- 
isfactory conclusion summer was advancing, the 
pavement growing hotter and the ’buses stuffier 
than ever. The longing for green spaces and that 
mountain air which she had never missed at this 
season tugged uselessly at the girl. A change — a 
little change — any sort of change! her youth mut- 
tered rebelliously under the dusty daily round. 

The change tarried; yet one Saturday evening 
there came a slight surprise in the shape of a note 
addressed in a round, childish hand, vaguely 
familiar. 


150 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“Dear Freilein, 

“Uncle says that praps yood like to see the beasts 
at the Zoo and Sundays the best day becairse of not 
beeing so big a crowd. So here is the order sined 
becase you cant get in Sundays without a director 
says so. 

“Your affecshonat pupil, 

“Tom Potts.^' 


“Just fancy that I” 

In the height of her astonishment Irma said it 
aloud. 

Tom Potts was the same small boy the cessation 
of whose lessons had been the first blow descended 
In Spring, and “Uncle” was, of course, the Indi- 
vidual who had been the cause of this cessation. To 
the grudge she felt against him he owed the only 
place he had ever occupied In Irma’s memory. But 
in face of the piece of paper signed “Joseph Potts” 
the grudge showed signs of melting. An expiation ? 
Perhaps. It really was rather kind of him to have 
thought of the Zoo — all the kinder as he, too, dur- 
ing all these months, had shown no further signs of 
an unwelcome approach. Another false alarm. And 
the employment of his nephew as a secretary 
showed a tact with which she would not have cred- 
ited him. Sunday ? Why, to-morrow was Sunday, 
and the weather promised well. Already the weari- 
ness of the long, hot afternoon was wiped from 
Irma’s face. At the mere prospect of such a thing 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 151 

as an “outing” her eighteen years had reasserted 
themselves. After months of drudgery even the 
Zoo bore a promise of dissipation, to which in old 
days a ball had scarcely reached. Her first bit of 
London sight-seeing — of London of which she 
knew a few streets by heart, and of the rest as much 
as of the care of the African continent. Her father? 
Surely he would not object. The Zoo on Sunday 
was scarcely to be accounted one of those public 
places which he naturally shunned. And the change 
would be as good as a tonic to him — she was sure of 
that. If any question rose in Irma’s mind as to the 
perfect wisdom of accepting Mr. Potts’s offer it 
never became articulate, strangled at birth by the 
craving for that “outing” which she was conscious 
of having richly deserved. 

When, therefore, Mr. Harding came home it 
was not to have his advice asked, but to* be con- 
fronted by a fait accompli, Pattie having run to the 
pillar-post at the corner with the note of acceptance, 
in time for the last post. 

“We’ve both of us worked hard enough to de- 
serve a treat, papa, don’t you think?” Irma argued. 
“We’ll see the lions fed, and we’ll keep our crusts 
from supper for the monkeys — or perhaps they’d 
prefer nuts ? You will like to go, papa, won’t you ? 
It’s in a beautiful park, you know, and perhaps 
we’ll see real green trees again there.” 

“I like everything that my Antigone likes,” said 
Harding, smiling his unquiet smile^ His own in- 


152 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

stinct would have led him to keep in the shadows ; 
but the first terror of discovery had long since worn 
off, and the sight of Irma’s radiant face was de- 
cisive. It was not much of an opportunity for pay- 
ing off the tiniest installment of that debt of grati- 
tude incurred towards his own child, and whose 
weight was not the least of his trials, but such as it 
was he took it. 

sK 5|e J|c sK ★ s|e ★ 

‘Trauleinl” 

Irma was standing in front of a cage containing 
a bored-looking baboon, whose interest she was 
vainly endeavouring to arouse in the walnut in her 
hand, when, amidst the human and semi-human 
chattering around her, the address met her ear, or, 
rather, rose to it, from a considerably lower level. 

Until this moment all had gone splendidly. There 
had been no difficulty about the ’bus, no hitch about 
the admission; a shower in the night had laid the 
dust; the bears in the pit had climbed just at the 
right moment; the most exotic birds had left their 
dark corners to prune their brilliant feathers in the 
welcome sunshine; the elephants had been conde- 
scending, and even the boa-constrictors had exerted 
themselves sufficiently to convince Irma that they 
were not stuffed specimens. So far her “treat” had 
gone without a blemish. But now 

The bright face on which the unmixed enjoyment 
was so plainly written turned towards the speaker, 
and became, as a first result, frankly astonished. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 153 

“Oh, Tom — you here? With whom ” 

But there was no need to complete the question, 
since close behind Tom, who, indeed, appeared to 
have been put forward in the guise of a social 
buckler, stood Mr. Joseph Potts in person, with a 
curve of his rosy lips which waited only for the sig- 
nal of recognition to become a smile, and a well- 
gloved hand half-way towards his shining hat. 

“I am so thankful to you for having made use 
of the order,” he murmured, as he carefully uncov- 
ered his flaxen head. 

“Oh, I see!” Irma said it with a certain blank- 
ness. “Yes, it was very kind of you. This is Mr. 
Potts, papa, whom I think you don’t know.” 

Having spoken, she gave one of those little, fierce 
bites into her underlip which were the habitual out- 
lets to angry emotions. Abruptly the glory of her 
Sunday afternoon was extinguished, and extin- 
guished in mockery, too, since she had the very dis- 
tinct sensation of having walked into a trap. Almost 
she could have slapped her own face for her stu- 
pidity. Kindness and good nature, indeed, when 
nothing but the most crying inexperience could 
excuse her for not having recognised in the Sunday 
order the assignment for a rendezvous! If any 
doubt on the subject remained, the look in the motor 
manufacturer’s eyes would have made short work 
of it. They were remarkably round eyes; and, 
whatever might be the case in business hours, at this 
moment they were melting in the most unbusiness- 


154 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

like fashion, almost to the liquidity of the typical 
baby’s eyes. Not unlike a magnified baby, in fact, 
was the junior partner of the firm of Potts Brothers 
and Co., being plump and chubby, with round, rosy 
cheeks, thickly set with dimples, and shining, ap- 
parently, from the recent application of soap. A 
giant baby fresh from its bath, and miraculously 
furnished with all its teeth. Beside him the seven- 
year-old Tom, though chubby, too, looked quite 
elderly; for Tom copied his father and not his 
uncle, which resulted in measured movements and 
a solemnity beyond words, as befitted a small per- 
son on whom it had been early impressed that his 
one business in this world, for which he could not 
too soon prepare, was the making of money. When 
seen beside his father he could be taken for a minia- 
ture model of the full-sized article, one of those 
costly mechanical toys, perhaps, constructed for 
modern children — ^while the round-eyed uncle might 
stand for the very child that would delight in the 
toy. 

“We have been through all the houses, positively 
through all the houses,” he explained smilingly to 
Irma, who had chucked the nut into the baboon’s 
cage, there to take its chance. 

“No doubt Tom enjoyed the animals,” she said, 
as loftily as though she herself were quite above 
any such enjoyment. 

“It was not the animals we were after.” The 
significance of the accent was so unmistakable that 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 155 

Irma felt positively grateful to her small ex-pupil 
for breaking in just then with a serious warning. 

“Uncle, there is only five minutes’ time till the 
sea-lions are fed.” 

“Yes, let us go to the sea-lions,” decided Irma, 
weakly. 

An attempt made at the exit from the monkey- 
house to draw Tom’s hand through her arm proved 
a failure. The ease with which he paired off with 
her father seemed to point to previous instructions. 
Evidently it was not as secretary alone that the 
miniature business man had his uses. 

As beside Potts, junior, Irma walked towards the 
sea-lions’ pond, she began to wonder whether Potts, 
senior, w^as aware of his son and heir’s epistolary 
performance, and whether he would get a full 
account of the visit tO' the Zoo. The scent of brib- 
ery and corruption seemed to her all the more ripe 
in the air, as a good part of the walk to the pond 
was occupied by an explanation concerning a Conti- 
nental business journey from which Mr. Joseph 
Potts had only just returned, and the insinuation 
that but for this circumstance she would certainly 
have heard from him ere this. 

“I don’t believe there’s only one sea-lion,” ob- 
served Tom, having for several minutes intensely 
and unsmilingly watched the manoeuvres of the agile 
monster, reappearing with magical rapidity upon 
the stone edge of the basin from each header after 
the flashes of silver which started from the big 


156 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

basket on the keeper’s arm. “I think there are two. 
He wouldn’t come back so quickly.” 

“With enough horse-power, why not?” mused 
Mr. Potts. “Talking of horse-power, Fraulein 
Hartmann,” and his round eyes came back from 
the stormily disturbed pond to Irma’s face, “do you 
know that we have just turned out an improved 
‘Cerberus,’ with sixty-four power, with which we 
expect to knock the Frenchmen out of the field? 
You didn’t know. Ah, perhaps you don’t read the 
Motor Newsf* 

“I didn’t know there existed a Motor News/* 
said Irma, a trifle crossly, for her spoiled holiday 
rankled, “and if I ever make a nearer acquaintance 
with motors it will probably be by being run over 
by one.” 

His round eyes became two globes of wonder. 

“Is it possible? You have never been inside a 
car?” He was staring at her as at a natural phe- 
nomenon and, at the same time, a person worthy of 
the deepest compassion. “We came along at a 
splendid pace to-day. Oh, if you would permit 
me 

“Uncle, it is time for the real lions now,” broke 
in Tom’s grave treble, after consultation with a 
gold repeater which need not have disgraced the 
broadest city waistcoat. Yet, though obviously de- 
termined upon sound business principles, to get the 
full benefit of his afternoon, the mannikin’s 
thoughts, even on the road to the “real lions,” were 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE [157 

still at work upon the problem of the ubiquitous 
sea monster. 

“I don’t believe there’s only one,” he confided to 
Mr. Harding, even while pressing towards the spot 
to which the hollow thunder of hungry roars guided 
them easily. 

Before the lions’ summer quarters, jutting out 
peninsula fashion from the main building, and 
therefore accessible on three sides, the compara- 
tively select Sunday public, hailing largely from 
the nursery, was pretty fully assembled. A fearful 
and delightful expectancy lay upon many of the 
juvenile faces making a ring round that caged ter- 
ror, while at the shock of each fresh roar some small 
hand would unconsciously grasp tighter a fold of 
the maternal skirt or the paternal coat. 

“There is room here,” said Mr. Potts, guiding 
Irma to the least encumbered side, “unless you mind 
the smell,” for even here in the open the rank wild 
beast odour filled the nostrils unpleasantly. 

“I don’t mind it for a few minutes. Papa, do 
you? Tom, stay beside me,” she said imperiously, 
possessing herself of the small hand, by way of 
a safety measure. Why should not Tom come in 
useful to her, too, as well as to his uncle? “Oh, 
how horribly yellow his eyes are! And how hard 
he stares at Mr. Potts 1 ” she added in her own mind, 
with an irresistible inner chuckle. “I am sure he is 
thinking how good to eat the dear gentleman would 
be.” 


158 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

To judge from the fixity of the yellow glass eyes, 
under which the motor manufacturer himself began 
to fidget uncomfortably, the big lion close by seemed 
to be quite of Irma’s opinion. Nothing less than 
the meat-laden basket’s appearance on the arena 
was needed to divert his royal attention. 

“I hope the spectacle is not offensive to you,” 
Mr. Potts was murmuring in Irma’s ear. “Some 
ladies dislike the sight of the raw meat. Indeed, it 
is not precisely appetizing.” A slight grimace dis- 
turbed his rosy face as he said it. Obviously the 
raw meat was not to his taste. He himself looked, 
indeed, as though he had been fed exclusively on 
bread and milk. 

“No, I don’t mind,” said Irma, impatiently. 

“But perhaps your father does? He is not look- 
ing very well.” 

Irma, turning her head quickly, saw that her 
father, with a deadly pale face, was leaning so 
heavily against a bar in front of him as to make 
it seem probable that without its support he would 
have fallen. Instantly both the lions and Mr. 
Potts became things of unimportance. 

“Papa! what is the matter? Are you ill?” she 
asked urgently, above Tom’s head. 

His eyes were staring straight through the cage, 
and out at the other side, glued, it would seem, to 
a group imperfectly visible through the double row 
of separating bars. Twice his lips moved before he 
managed to say, in a whisper audible to her alone : 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 159 

“It’s Greyson, and he may see me any moment.” 

With panic clutching her heart, Irma peered 
through the breadth of the cage, filled now by a 
monstrous crunching of bones. She knew that Grey- 
son was the London manager of the “Anglo- 
Saxon.” What she saw was a stumpy gentleman 
with pepper-and-salt side-whiskers, and with a 
small, fuzzy-haired girl clinging on to each of his 
arms in what was evidently an ecstasy of shivers. 

“That man with the girls?” 

Pie nodded. 

“But he hasn’t seen you yet?” 

“Not yet.” 

“Come away quickly. They are busy with the 
lions now.” 

Dropping Tom’s hand, she took hold of her 
father’s arm and attempted to support him. 

“Allow me!” 

Mr. Potts’s vigorous aid was, for the moment, 
not unwelcome. 

“Your father is not well, I see. It is that hor- 
rible meat, or perhaps the smell.” 

“Yes, yes — the smell,” said Irma, vaguely. “We 
must get home at once. How far is it to the ’bus ?” 

“The ’bus? It is not to be thought of, Fraulein 
Hartmann. Just look how white he is 1 My car is 
at the entrance ; you will allow me, surely ” 

“Ah, no — ^we can get a hansom.” 

“Even if there happens to be one about — it’s 
Sunday, you know ; he wouldn’t be nearly so com- 


i6o POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


fortable in a hansom as in my car; the ‘Cerberus’ 
neither vibrates nor smells, upon my honour it 
doesn’t, and cushions as soft as any sofa.” 

Had Irma been a possible purchaser, he could 
not have more eagerly reeled off the virtues of the 
article. 

All the way to the entrance, during which Hard- 
ing spoke nothing and dragged heavily at his arm, 
Mr. Potts was praying fervently that no hansom 
should be in sight. It proved to be one of those 
rare prayers which find a direct hearing. 

“You see, Fraulein Hartmann — there is nothing 
for it but my car.” 

He tried to say it with a not too indecent exul- 
tation over the so fortunate combination of circum- 
stances. 

“Oh, well, all right — if it doesn’t take you too 
much out of your way,” said Irma, with the indiffer- 
ence of recklessness, lost to all minor considerations 
by the sight of her father’s waxen face. 

Half an hour ago it would have been hard to 
believe that she could take her very first motor drive 
with such a complete absence of interest in the sub- 
ject itself. The dust-mask and goggles of the care- 
fully turned-out chauffeur failed to amuse her, and 
the speed with which they set in motion rejoiced 
her only because she saw therein escape from a pos- 
sible pursuit. She would have liked the vehicle 
better still had it been closed, for by the mere col- 
lapse of her father’s figure she could guess at his 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE i6i 


longing for a dark corner. It was only well beyond 
Regent’s Park that, with a new stab of pity, she 
asked herself whether the pursuit had ever been a 
real danger. Even if the eyes of the grey-whis- 
kered gentleman had actually rested upon her fath- 
er’s face, would recognition have ensued? Had not 
suffering conspired with that snow-white beard to 
weave as effectual a mask as the one worn by that 
ridiculous chauffeur? 

Meanwhile the “Cerberus” contained at least 
one happy person. And even Tom, unduly cur- 
tailed though he had been of the end of the lions’ 
feed, was too busy with his problem to feel the dis- 
appointment keenly. 

“I don’t believe there was only one,” was the 
final confidence made to his pillow that night. 


CHAPTER VIII 


BOB KENDALL 

“If there’s one thing that upsets my moral equi- 
librium more than another,” ruminated Vincent, at 
the conclusion of a church parade, whose thinness 
attested the waning season, “it’s the wrong sort of 
sermon.” 

At the park entrance he stood still, deeply con- 
sidering. 

“Now, I wonder if Eaton Place is expecting me 
to lunch ? Plum. I I suppose so. If I could count 
upon unmixed family they could have me and wel- 
come. But when are they unmixed nowadays?” 

Rarely, to say the truth. Of all the meals eaten 
lately at the paternal board not one had been eaten 
en famille. Let him cross the threshold atwhathour 
he chose, a visitor was sure to be in possession — a 
different one almost each time, but all belonging 
to that well-defined class which in his grandmother’s 
mind crystallised into the right sort of wife. Fair 
ones and dark ones, tall ones and short ones — evi- 
dently he was to be given a wide range of choice. 
To a mildly chronic persecution of the sort he had 

162 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 163 

been hardened for long, but within the last two 
months it had become acute. Heiresses positively 
swarmed nowadays in Eaton Place, and girls with 
connexions lurked in the very corners of the room. 
No explanation had ever been given of their pres- 
ence, and none asked. Lately, however, the heir- 
esses had been left to the tender mercies of the ex- 
Ambassador. 

“Of course, I don’t want to mangle granny’s 
feelings,” mused Vincent, conscious of a strong de- 
sire to shun the domestic table, and with eyes which 
vainly plumbed the Sunday crowd for familiar 
faces, “but if a fellow could get hold of a decent 
pretext ” 

A hand falling heavily on his shoulder caused 
him to turn his head. 

“Vin, by Jove! What luck! My last chance, 
too.” 

His hand was in that of a bearded giant, and 
being wrung to the point of physical pain. In spite 
of the pain Vincent’s face cleared. 

“Splendid ! Just what I want ! You’re my pre- 
text, Bob !” 

“Your how much?” 

“My pretext. Never mind. We toddle 
straight to my club. I annex you — no, ‘comman- 
deer’ is the right word, isn’t it? — for lunch.” 

The giant consulted his watch. 

“All right. I’m yours for a couple of hours. 
Packing all done, and only a few fellows to look 


i 64 pomp and circumstance 

up. I say, what luck to run against you, old boy ! 
I wasn’t even sure whether you hadn’t cleared out 
for your summer holiday; or are you kept too busy 
at your intrigue-spinning business to be given play- 
time?” 

“I can have eight weeks’ leave If I choose to ask 
for It,” said Vincent, with a trifle of stiffness, in- 
duced by the word “Intrigue.” Bob, tool It was 
absurd. “But I’m not sure about It yet.” 

Soon they sat on either side of a tiny table a 
deux, with many good things to eat and drink, and 
with Piccadilly — the subdued Sunday Piccadilly — 
wherewith to amuse their eyes. 

“Make the most of English food while you have 
It,” explained Bob, by way of apology for his appe- 
tite, which was perfectly in proportion with his 
frame, and above the napkin which he had Inserted 
into his collar and spread carefully over his Sunday 
waistcoat. Distinctly colonial he looked among the 
correct London silhouettes, the smallpox marks with 
which his broad face was closely pitted emphasising 
the flavour — for where except in out-of-the-way 
corners of the world is such disfigurement not obso^ 
lete ? — and giving him at the same time a vague re- 
semblance to some weather-beaten stone figure upon 
which the drip of many showers has been at work. 
Even the yellow-brown beard lent itself to the Illu- 
sion, marking as It did the tints of those mosses 
which love to gather upon coarse-grained stone. 
Besides all this. Bob Rendall had what some one 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 165 

had once described as “screamingly honest” grey- 
blue eyes, and a smile which, despite defective teeth, 
contrived to be fascinating. The describer of the 
eyes had likewise said that he looked “like some- 
body’s best friend” ; but, in point of fact, there was 
no monopoly to his friendship, since it belonged to 
everybody. 

Becomingly presently aware that Vincent was not 
keeping pace with his achievements, his fork 
dropped sympathetically. 

“I say, old man, this won’t do — off your feed, 
are you ? Is this the effect of overwork or of over- 
play? I’ve never before known you meditative ex- 
cept over politics. A penny for your thoughts, my 
boy!” 

“Eminently Sabbatical thoughts at this mo- 
ment. I actually happen to be meditating upon the 
sermon I heard this morning.” 

“Hum!” 

Bob squinted at him doubtfully, for the depar- 
ture was new. 

“And the subject?” 

“The abode of the blessed. Giving us his ideas 
of Paradise, you know. By-the-by, I find there’s 
nothing for gauging a person’s character like ques- 
tioning him on his conception of eternal bliss. The 
golden city, or the jasper city, or whatever the ma- 
terial is, don’t seem to be much in fashion just 
now. Privately, I believe that the happy hunting 
ground of the Indian is the ideal cherished by most 


i66 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

of my countrymen — a sort of glorified pheasant- 
preserve or deer-forest — it’s the only really sport- 
ing version when you come to think of it. The 
ladies, I suppose — to judge from the amount of 
garden catalogues about — would vote for the Gar- 
den of Eden, with angelic gardeners, of course, and 
unlimited spring-bulbs. But our man to-day was 
much more go-ahead than that — ^talked of nothing 
but ‘soaring through space’ and the ‘whirl of pin- 
ions.’ I fancy he had a flying-machine in his mind’s 
eye, or at the very least a manageable airship. 
Something very much up-to-date, anyway. No place 
in particular, but getting about as fast as possible 
from one place to the other, seems to be his private 
idea of bliss.” 

“Ha, ha I You don’t seem to agree with him. 
Any idea of your own?” 

Vincent seemed to be looking for the answer in 
the depth of his claret-glass, which he slowly emp- 
tied. 

“None very definite about the locality, I think, 
or any preference for city or garden, so long as the 
company was all right.” 

“And what would be the appearance of the com- 
pany?” 

“They would have to have blue eyes, I think, 
and black lashes.” 

Bob let out half a guffaw, and then stopped it, 
looking about him as though with a sudden con- 
sciousness of his whereabouts. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 167 

“Oh, I see I Sounds a bit Mahommedan, doesn’t 
it? Houris, you know, and that sort of thing.” 

“Why not?” said Vincent, with a smile that al- 
most achieved the flippancy it aimed at — ^yet with 
his next word he dexterously turned the talk. 

“And your idea? Let’s hear what notions of 
Paradise South Africa breeds.” 

“To me heaven stands for the place where there 
are to be no more partings.” Bob said it with a 
sudden gravity which touched on wistfulness. 

“To be sure! You’re fresh from down, there, 
aren’t you?” said Vincent, looking at his friend in 
quickening sympathy. Knowing what a place part- 
ings took in this man’s life, he could weigh the 
meaning behind the words. At the same moment 
some other words, spoken by Minna not long ago, 
returned to his mind. “Drab-coloured heroism,” 
she had said. It had never before struck him that 
there might be some truth in this conception of the 
big, simple-minded fellow, who always looked so 
cheerful, and plied so good a knife and fork; but 
a certain note in the voice which had just spoken 
betrayed things behind. “A hero incog” — ^was it 
possible? More attentively than he had ever done 
before, Vincent looked at his friend, glancing back 
at his history the while. 

A pretty commonplace history on the whole. 
Nothing either very dramatic or very sensational 
about the failure in life of these old family friends ; 
a self-inflicted failure^ too, since it was in attempting 


1 68 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

to double a very comfortable competence that the 
speculative head of the house, seized by the Stock 
Exchange mania, had landed himself and his de- 
pendants in indigence. The only son, brought up 
to expect millions, finished his education just in 
time to become the sole support of his parents. Cir- 
cumstances combined to add exile to his other trials. 
For fifteen years past he had been managing a large 
Transvaal farm for a rich Boer, who allowed him 
a trip home every three years and gave good 
enough pay to let him keep his aged parents in com- 
fort, though not good enough to leave room for 
his own settlement in life. Even had the profit been 
bigger, the thing would have remained an impossi- 
bility, for the “little girl” to whom his troth had 
been plighted since boyhood was the only person 
available to look after the old people, and would 
as surely have refused to desert her post as it was 
certain that he would never ask her to do so. 

That plighting of the troth was an old affair 
now, so old that the delicate profile of the “little 
girl” was already sharpening, and that among her 
golden hair some premature silver threads gleamed. 
Neither was it a public matter, though both Vincent 
and Minna owed their initiation to a burst of con- 
fidence, having, however, to bind themselves over 
to dead silence towards the old people. 

“What’s the use of telling them? — ^would only 
make them feel uncomfortable,” Bob had argued, 
when opening his heart to the younger man, than 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 169 

whom, despite his forty-odd years, he was in many 
respects younger. ‘‘She couldn’t leave them alone 
in any case. They were kind to her In the days 
when they still had something and she had noth- 
ing — so, of course, she can’t turn her back upon 
them now that they’ve all got nothing together.” 

So things continued as they were; and every 
three years Bob had the opportunity of noting how 
much of the bloom had got rubbed off the flower 
he had hoped to gather in the morning dew — and 
the partings grew sadder, but not less brave; and 
old Mr. Rendall blessed Heaven aloud for having 
given him so dutiful a son, and more loudly still 
for having so nobly supported him In his up-bring- 
ing — for even in the recognition of Bob’s qualities 
this Imperturbably self-satisfied old man contrived 
to annex the chief credit. “Tell me what sort of 
son you have and I will tell you what sort of a 
father you are !” he would triumphantly fling at the 
head of less fortunate parents, while pottering 
about the garden of the comfortable cottage in 
which Bob had settled him, quite as happy In watch- 
ing his roses as he had once been in studying the 
Stock Exchange columns, and blissfully unaware of 
being In any way the recipient of a sacrifice. It was 
so natural that a good son should not let his par- 
ents starve, and. In particular, a father who, but for 
the cruel persecutions of fate, would infallibly have 
made of his son a millionaire. The mere happiness 
of having him for a father seemed, in Mr. Ren- 


' 170 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

dalFs opinion, to outweigh all other obligations. 
Even had he known that Bob and Lucy entertained 
for each other more than cousinly feelings, it is not 
likely that his equanimity would have greatly suf- 
fered. But the circumstance escaped his notice, in 
which point he was probably less guiltily egoistic 
than the large, lazy Mrs. Rendall, who had her 
suspicions regarding the condition of Lucy’s heart, 
but kept them to herself because she disliked ‘emo- 
tions, and salved her conscience by reflecting upon 
the fewness of the years lying presumably before 
her, and which she craved only to live in peace. 

To Bob and Lucy the situation seemed quite as 
much a matter of course. In fulfilling so clear a 
duty they had never been able to discern anything 
out of the common. And, of course, it was clear — 
so clear that “not to do it would be to be a brute,” 
as Bob himself had once put it. But it was not the 
thing done ; it was — Minna had said that — the way 
of doing it. By the carriage of Bob’s head, by the 
readiness of his smile, it might have been supposed 
that the burden on his shoulders was but a feather’s 
weight. And the “little girl’s” pluck was equal to 
his. In the weary years of separation those in the 
secret would ask themselves: did it ever occur to 
them that the opening of two graves would mean 
deliverance? Humanly speaking, it seemed un- 
avoidable; but if the thought ever rose, it had never 
got translated into as much as a fretful word, nor 
even into one of blame for the hare-brained enter- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 17 1 

prises responsible for the ruin. The usual drop of 
bitterness which goes to the composition of even 
good-natured men seemed to have been forgotten 
in Bob’s case. 

Something of all this Vincent considered, while 
watching the size of the cheese chunks which the 
other was disposing of. Was it because of his in- 
vincible appetite (as though so huge a frame could 
have subsisted on less) that the idea of sentiment 
seemed so hard to fit into Bob’s personality? 

“So you’re off to your drudgery for another three 
years ? Or has it stopped being drudgery ? Maybe 
you’re a fanatic farmer by this time?” 

Bob laughed knowingly. 

“Give me a bit of land of my own, and you’d see 
the fanatic fast enough. What with the soil and 
the climate and the new opening up of the country 
it’s the place to breed the species. But it’s difficult 
to be fanatical about another man’s ground, though 
I don’t believe I could do better for my own.” 

“And no chance of getting that bit of your 
own ?” 

“None,” said Bob, with a decisive shake of his 
big head. “The building of the nest isn’t a bit 
nearer than when I spoke to you last.” 

The hand with which he stretched for his wine- 
glass gave a slight but expressive jerk. 

“But there are mouthfuls a-going, I tell you I” 
he went on, with kindling interest. “Mouthfuls 
that are being scrambled for already ! If ever there 


172 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

was a country with Its future written plainly on its 
face It’s the Transvaal.” 

“Oh, yes, weVe done a good deal, no doubt,” 
said Vincent, with a tepidity which increased Bob’s 
warmth, sending him off Into a panegyric of South 
African resources. In which ostriches, peaches and 
diamonds aptly represented the three natural king- 
doms. 

“For a fellow with a bit of capital In his hand 
It’s a found bargain — capital, brains — and a free 
hand,” added Bob, with a half-sigh, quickly re- 
pressed. “But, mind. Pm not complaining,” he 
carefully corrected himself. “There are lots of fel- 
lows worse off than I. Give me an English master, 
and Pd not have a word to say. This man is quite 
one of the decent Boers, but somehow we seem to 
be talking different languages. But as for com- 
plaining — no. Isn’t It enough to have got tacked 
back again on to dear old England? Why, it 
scarcely feels like exile now ! And such a country, 
too !” 

Vincent listened rather dreamily to a second pan- 
egyric, this time of rolling velds, towering gum- 
trees and waving mimosa-bushes. 

“And as for the sport!” 

Bob had to fetch a breath before feeling compe- 
tent to do justice to the glories of springbok and 
bustard. 

“Not that a fellow often gets the chance of a 
shot,” he admitted. In conclusion. “A Boer farmer 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 173 

has a most excellent idea of getting his money’s 
worth out of either beast or man.” 

Close questioning elicited a few further facts — 
such as that Bob’s quarters were a one-chambered 
hut, that he had to be in the saddle by five every 
morning, that the post arrived once a week, and 
that the nearest Englishman lived twenty miles off ; 
for the pathos of the existence of “everybody’s 
friend” was added to by the fact of severance from 
all friendship. “The life of a galley-slave and of 
an exile rolled into one,” decided Vincent within 
himself, while saying aloud : 

“And that sort of life satisfies you?” 

Bob appeared to be conscientiously looking for 
a truthful answer. 

“Isn’t ‘satisfy’ a rather big word? I’ve told you 
that it’s not like working for oneself. But there — 
it’s something, isn’t it, to have a plain job cut out 
for you, and to feel that you can do it ? One doesn’t 
feel absolutely useless, you know,” explained Bob, 
with engaging shamefacedness. 

“I suppose so,” said Vincent, watching the 
other’s face in a way which betrayed some latent 
interest. “Yes, your job is plain, anyway. No 
twists and turns about your path of life, anyway. 
Bob, you’ve never been bothered with ambition, I 
suppose?” 

“Ambition ? You mean wanting to make a name 
in the world? All very well for the fellows with 
brains like you, Vin^ but not for the people like 


174 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

myself.” This with a glance of deferential admira- 
tion for his friend, for Bob belonged to the most 
fervent believers in Vincent’s future. 

“Some of those Boer girls are handsome, aren’t 
they?” asked the other abruptly, after a long, at- 
tentive gaze. “Have you never grown weak in 
their hands, or are the hands too big for the pur- 
pose?” 

Bob’s stare became acutely reproachful. 

“Vin! This from you! And when you know 
about the little girl?” 

“Does her image actually suffice to overshadow 
all her Boer sisters? Three years are a long in- 
terval.” 

Vincent was still closely studying the face oppo- 
site, possessed by a quite new curiosity concerning 
the strength of Bob’s attachment, or, perhaps, of 
the affairs of the heart generally. 

“It might be fifty years,” said Bob, very low and 
very gravely, “and it would make no difference.” 
“Ah!” 

Vincent leaned forward, with arms folded on the 
table, intent upon losing no word. 

“So the feeling can be as strong as that, can it? 
I’ve heard of such a thing as constancy, but I don’t 
think I ever before met it in the flesh. And yet I 
wager you’ve had your opportunities. They like 
big men out there.” 

Upon this Bob became confused, and, presently, 
hard pressed, confessed that there was one of his 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 175 

employer’s daughters^ — and a fine girl, too — ^whom 
he could have any day for the asking. 

“The father would give her to you?” 

“And a slice of ground into the bargain. He 
has too many daughters to be particular.” 

“Bob, you must be awfully fond of that little 
girl,” said Vincent, suddenly thoughtful. 

“I can’t help it,” pleaded Bob, almost in apol- 
ogy. “It’s just that nothing else counts beside her.” 

Vincent took one more long look into his friend’s 
face, then shook himself and proposed an adjourn- 
ment. 

“My last London day,” said Bob, as they de- 
scended the club steps, and sending his glance about 
him with the sweeping movement of a net, seeking 
to catch as many fragments of home-pictures as it 
could be got to enclose. As, rather silently now, 
they strolled about the Sunday streets. Bob was 
storing up these fragments to live on for three 
years more. 

“Last time I was home,” he remarked, presently, 
“the tube was the newest thing. This time it’s the 
motor-’bus. What will it be next time ? You pam- 
pered sons of civilisation can’t imagine how amus- 
ing the motors have made the streets for us — almost 
as amusing as a live toy-shop where all the mechani- 
cal toys are being trotted out together. I’m never 
tired of watching them. Very few about to-day. 
Ah — there ! Just stop a moment, like a good boy, 
and let me have my stare.” 


176 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

They had reached the corner of Park Lane, down 
which a particularly smart-looking motor-car, 
guided by a particularly grotesque-looking chauf- 
feur, was approaching at top speed. 

“Awfully neat thing, that!” grinned the delight- 
ed Bob, in the rush of air which followed the tumul- 
tuous vehicle. “Eh, Vin?” 

I>ooking round for an answer which delayed, 
Bob perceived that his friend was standing appar- 
ently rooted to the edge of the pavement, with 
fixed glance drawn in the rear of the vanishing car. 

“What are you glaring at? Friends of yours?” 

Vincent visibly pulled himself together. 

“No — of course not. I was only wondering at 
the pace. You’ll be off, I suppose, now, won’t you ? 
And I’m afraid I have some calls to pay.” 

The parting was more abrupt than seemed quite 
explicable to Bob. 

The calls, however, were not paid, for the reason 
that Vincent was too busily occupied in exercising 
his mind over what he had just seen. Even in that 
instant of swift passage he had clearly recognised 
Fraulein Hartmann, with her father beside her, and 
had been vaguely aware of a young man and of a 
small boy. For this strange fact — whose strange- 
ness, to be sure, was no earthly concern of his — he 
felt pushed to find an explanation. 

A young man and a motor — these were the ele- 
ments of the problem; a private motor, obviously, 
and — as seemed logical to suppose- — belonging to 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 177 

the young man. Another inference frequently 
drawn from the proximity of a young man and a 
young woman likewise presented itself for consid- 
eration. Well, she was beautiful enough to make 
anything seem possible, so* why not the capture of 
a rich youth? — and, even from that flying glimpse, 
Vincent had gathered the impression of blatant 
prosperity. Yes, but the boy? Absolutely he did 
not know where to put the boy. A pater-familias? 
The aspect had been too conspicuously youthful to 
support the hypothesis. To be sure, he might be a 
villain — and in that case^ — in that case it likewise 
was no concern of Vincent’s. And yet he was aware 
that the unriddling of the riddle had become neces- 
sary for his peace of mind. 

“To-morrow is Monday!” he concluded his re- 
flections. 

Next afternoon, in the middle of the German 
lessons in Fortague Street, there was the sound of 
what appeared to be a slight scuffle outside the 
drawing-room door, upon which Vincent walked 
in unannounced by the baffled Wilson, and looking 
entirely unabashed. 

“My dear Vincent!” began Minna, but, noting 
the set of his mouth* merged her protest into a 
question as to whether he had brought any news 
from Eaton Place. 

“No news,” said Vincent, with what looked like 
perfect coolness; “only a farewell message from 
Bob Rendall. You need not move, Fraulein Hart- 


178 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

mann — I shall not Interrupt for long. Bob Rendall 
was that big man with the beard whom you per- 
haps noticed yesterday at the corner of Park Lane,” 
he added, turning more deliberately towards Irma. 

“Park Lane?” she repeated, meeting his piercing 
look of inquiry with one of obvious incomprehen- 
sion, her fingers pausing in the turning over of a 
page. 

“So she did not see me,” noted Vincent, while 
pursuing: 

“Yes. I was not aware that you liked motor- 
driving. But unless you want to be brought up for 
excess of pace I should advise you to look after your 
chauffeur/^ 

At sight of the rush of blood to her face the 
veiled bitterness of his tone translated Itself into a 
somewhat merciless smile. 

“My chauffeur! Oh, I see — ^you mean Mr. 
Potts’s chauffeur!* 

(“Potts!” Down went the name Into a mental 
notebook. ) 

“A friend of yours?” he asked, and by the proud 
astonishment in her eyes became aware that he had 
put the question as though he had the right to an 
answer. Hurriedly he attempted to get rid of this 
undue earnestness of tone, much as the air-shipper 
will lighten his balloon by throwing ballast over- 
board. Without waiting for her answer, he said, 
forcing another smile : 

“Perhaps it was to amuse the small Potts that 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 179 

you were going so fast? — for there is a small Potts 
in the question, isn’t there ? A pupil, no doubt?” 

But the attempt at carelessness did not nearly 
come up to his usual efforts in that line. 

“He has been my pupil, but I don’t give him les- 
sons now.” 

“Perhaps it is the papa who is rubbing up his 
languages?” 

“Mr. Potts is not his papa — I mean, not this 
Mr. Potts — only his uncle.” 

“Ah ! Capital institution for small boys, bache- 
lor uncles are!” 

Against his own will his glance had again be- 
come inquisitorial, as with drawn brows and nar- 
rowed pupils he waited for the correction of the 
word, on which he had laid an imperceptible stress. 
But no correction came, and in the displeasure on 
Irma’s face confusion was plainly mingled. 

It was at this moment that Minna, till now a 
silent observer of the scene, interposed with some 
question touching Bob Rendall. It relieved the 
tension enough to preserve conventions, but not 
enough to ensure a normal ending of the inter- 
rupted lesson, Fraulein Hartmann’s disturbance be- 
ing too evident to let Minna wish to detain her. 
Though Vincent had not even sat down during the 
short dialogue, it was, after all, Irma who, under 
cover of an improvised excuse, first withdrew. 

For some moments silence reigned in the small, 


i8o POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


crowded drawing-room. Then Vincent turned to 
Minna and said, with recovered calm : 

“Minna, I think I shall ask for those eight 
weeks’ leave, after all.” 

“I think you had better,” said Minna, and for 
the moment that was all that passed between them. 

That night, or, rather, next morning, on his re- 
turn from one of the last gatherings of the season, 
Vincent elaborated the train of thoughts started in 
that remark. 

“This won’t do, Vin, my boy,” he apostrophised 
himself while stretching between the sheets, “ab- 
solutely this won’t do ! High time to clear out for 
a bit. What are the facts? A young person who 
gives lessons is seen by you in a motor-car. In- 
stantly you require to know who the motor belongs 
to, and now that you know it you’re not a bit hap- 
pier. You’ve ascertained that he’s a bachelor. Well, 
what of that ? And supposing his intentions to be 
matrimonial — ^which that guilty heightening of col- 
our certainly seems to imply — in what way can that 
possibly regard you? A man who can purchase a 
motor-car of that description is probably at liberty 
to purchase whatever sort of wife pleases him. But 
your path doesn’t lie in the direction of penniless 
and nameless teachers — tiever can lie in that direc- 
tion. Oh, yes, it’s time to clear out. By Autumn 
it’s ten to one the Roman secretaryship will be va- 
cant, which will put half Europe between me and 
— her. But en attendant I go.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE i8i 


Now that he faced the situation he did so' fully — 
making no pretense about the feeling that possessed 
him, and which he now knew to have possessed him 
ever since the first meeting — for Irma had made 
upon him something of that same sort of instan- 
taneous impression which her mother had once 
made upon her father. Both Irma and Isabella be- 
longed to the order of women whose victims go 
down at the first blow. Yet, unlike Edward Hard- 
ing, Vincent had no thought of surrender. He had 
always known that some such battle would have to 
be fought some day. All sorts of arguments and 
principles were lying ready for the occasion, like 
weapons diligently furbished. Well, he would use 
them — that was all. A couple of months on Scotch 
moors, or, better still, on that Norwegian river, to 
which a standing invitation — of diplomatic origin, 
of course — gave him free access, would be all that 
was required. 

“It’s got to be got over, same as distemper,” Vin- 
cent coolly argued. A dose of sulphur usually cured 
sick puppies. It was therefore to be expected that 
a dose of Norwegian salmon would prove of equal 
service to the human puppy. 

“I’ll secure my ticket-of-leave to-morrow,” he 
decided, just before turning over. “This day week 
I may be off — and meanwhile I’ll steer clear both 
of Fortague Street and that particular line of the 
park.” 

Suddenly he laughed out loud. 


i 82 pomp and circumstance 


“What a good boy am I ! What a perfectly rea- 
sonable and model youth — and how pleased granny 
would be 

He laughed again almost convulsively — a note 
of self-scorn ringing through that of self-approval. 


PART III 


CHAPTER I 

“CERBERUS"" GOES A-WOOING 

Filbert Gardens was agitated to the depth of 
its dingy brick heart. 

Not that this was the first invasion of its almost 
cloistered precincts by this smartest of smart motors 
— for midsummer had witnessed the apparition 
more than once — ^but that for quite two months past 
it had been watched for in vain. Its resuscitation 
was at least as sensational as had been its original 
appearance. At almost every second window, pierc- 
ing the pseudo prison walls, were to be seen noses 
flattened against panes, eyes gloating upon the de- 
tails of the shining and mysterious vehicle — for to 
be shaved by a motor in the street, and to see one 
standing at your neighbour’s door, are two separate 
and distinct experiences. Children were being 
held up to see and tremble before the goggles of 
the hairy monster — the chauffeur having on this 
chilly October day donned his winter coat. Not a 
person in the street in whom the presence of this 
183 


1 84 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

embodiment of luxury did not induce an increase 
of self-respect, and not a landlady who was not bit- 
terly asking herself why lodgers with “motor vis- 
itors” should fall to other people’s share and not 
to her own. The dwellers on the first floor of the 
house so honoured, a family which described itself 
as “artistic,” who had taken to bowing to Irma at 
the time of the motor’s first appearance, and 
dropped the habit with its disappearance, began to 
think seriously of scraping acquaintance with the 
“foreigners.” Mrs. Martin herself, whose face and 
figure were barely familiar to her lodgers — they 
knowing her chiefly as a voice — had toiled up from 
subterranean regions, and stood on the doorstep, 
holding converse with the hairy man, and gathering 
upon her broad person all the reflected glory of the 
incident; while behind her Pattie’s ecstatic grin ex- 
panded unrebuked. 

Meanwhile, within the sitting-room-bedroom, 
Irma was having a “bad quarter of an hour.” 

“I cannot, Mr. Potts — really, I cannot,” she 
pleaded, in growing distress. “I am truly touched 
by your offer, believe me, and, of course, I cannot 
doubt your affection, since beyond myself I have 
nothing to give. But it is impossible for me to — to 
do what you want.” 

“But I am offering to marry youi,” said Mr. 
Potts, with his globelike stare of surprise, and tri- 
umphantly underlining the great word. “You can- 
not have properly understood me; I am proposing 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 185 

to lead you to the altar, all right, and to give you 
my name, and all that sort of thing. I don’t expect 
my family to be over-pleased, of course. They 
want me to marry money, because of the firm. But 
I don’t see why a man shouldn’t marry whom he 
chooses, so long as he can afford it, and I can do 
that, thank Heaven!” 

A modest little pull upwards of his spotless collar 
punctuated the gratitude. 

“Blow the money, I say, so long as the connexion 
is respectable, and I haven’t the smallest doubt that 
you can give me every assurance on that point. Your 
grace and — and your charms quite make up for the 
want of fortune, in my eyes,” he added, in tones 
which, despite their melting quality, betrayed some 
of the condescension of the king towards the beg- 
gar-maid. 

“You are very kind,” said Irma, hovering on the 
verge of a burst of nervous laughter. 

“Not at all; I mean it, really — ^upon my word I 
do. I should have spoken two months ago — that 
time after the — Zoo — you know — only that Will- 
iam whisked me off on another business journey — 
a got-up job, I do believe, just to get me out of the 
way. But William can’t keep me out of London 
forever, and he’d better not try 1” 

The baby face crumpled into- a frown which did 
not seem able to threaten anything worse than tears. 

“I’ve taken the very first opportunity of coming 


1 86 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


— upon my word I have, Miss Hartmann — or — 
or surely I may say ‘Irma’ now?” 

“Oh, no, please not!” murmured Irma, moving 
back apprehensively, for the enamoured motor man- 
ufacturer was leaning forward in his chair at an 
angle well-nigh perilous. 

He gazed at her aghast, the dimples in his pink 
cheeks slowly disappearing, his liquid gaze, so to 
say, solidifying. 

“You cannot mean that your refusal is serious? 
Have you understood that — — ” 

“That you wish to marry me — yes, perfectly,” 
said Irma, in whom exasperation was gaining the 
upper hand. “I should have thought that my re^ 
fusal was as plain as your offer.” 

For a moment longer he remained in his forward 
position, with rosy lips dropped apart, so naively 
taken aback by the rebuff that again Irma had to 
struggle for gravity. Then came the explosion. 

“But, Miss Hartmann, you can’t have consid- 
ered, you can’t have grasped what it is that you are 
refusing! It’s not only that we could make our 
honeymoon in the ‘Cerberus,’ scouring Europe, 
mind you, at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and 
any corner of it you fancy — ^Alps, Pyrenees — noth- 
ing need stop us, since the ‘Cerberus’ laughs at hills 
— but that you’d never need to sit behind a horse 
again, unless you want to. Why, I’d undertake to 
teach you the trick yourself in a week. Any child 
can manage our engines^ — ^that’s the beauty of them 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 187 

— and since we have put in the steel cylinders, and 
the beaten brass water-jackets^ ” 

“Thank you, Mr. Potts. I am sure there will 
be plenty of candidates for that honeymoon, but I 
do not intend to compete.” 

“You surely don’t mean to say that you dislike 
me?” he asked, struck by a new idea. His appre- 
ciation of the “Cerberus,” as a rule, rather swamped 
his appreciation of his own person, or, more prop- 
erly speaking, identified itself with it. At this mo- 
ment, however, the personal question penetrated. 

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Irma, hastily, as averse 
to wounding so unconscious a conceit as she would 
have been to hurting a child. “It is not that. But 
— I cannot marry. There are reasons. My 
father ” 

“I have thought of that,” broke in Mr. Potts 
with magnanimous eagerness. “Your father could 
live with us. There is plenty of room, and really 
I should not object at all. Mr. Hartmann seems 
such a quiet person; I am sure we should get on all 
right; and any one can see that he is highly respect- 
able. Even William cannot possibly object to the 
connexion.” 

In a species of desperation Irma got to her feet. 
It seemed the only way of ending the interview. 

“Thank you again — thank you,” she said, a trifle 
convulsively. “Really, you are very generous. But 
it’s no use talking. It just cannot be.” 


i88 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


Perforce risen, he looked at her with a new 
attention. 

“You are agitated, Miss Hartmann — only to be 
expected. Perhaps I have been too sudden. Don’t 
be anxious — I am going. But I don’t accept this 
as your final decision. I shall give you a month to 
think over it — a whole month — and then I shall 
come back again.” 

“It will be no use,” protested Irma, but to deaf 
ears. Nothing seemed to convince Mr. Joseph 
Potts of defeat. He went out at last, with self-sat- 
isfaction almost restored — smiling already at the 
victory which he considered not endangered, but 
only deferred. It was but natural, after all, that 
a girl in Irma’s position should be struck foolish 
by the honour done to her, and in her astonishment 
should doubt her ability to fill the place offered. 
But a month’s quiet reflection would help her to 
believe in her good luck. 

The “Cerberus,” followed by the eyes of half 
the dwellers in Filbert Gardens, had barely panted 
round the corner when Pattie had to open the door 
again — to a pedestrian this time. 

“Surely that was Mr. Potts’s motor that I met 
just now?” asked Harding, entering with rather 
more animation than was his wont. “Has that 
young man turned up again? What does he want?” 

Behind the assumption of carelessness a certain 
suspense pierced. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 189 

Irma turned, her face still full of the distress of 
the recent scene. 

“Oh, papa, he wants to marry me ! It is such a 
bother! You can’t imagine how worried I am.” 

“To marry you?” 

Harding stood stock-still, looking hard at his 
daughter. “Pie has actually made you a formal 
proposal? No mistake about it?” 

“Not the shadow of a mistake. He explained it 
three times over. I expected him to spell it ouf 
next.” 

“And you, Irma?” 

He seemed to catch his breath after the question. 

“I? Oh, I tried to let him down as easily as 
I could. I hope I wasn’t too rude, but I had to be 
distinct.” 

“You refused him off-hand?” 

“Of course. What else could I do?” 

Harding laid aside the hat he had till then been 
holding in his hand, and slowly let himself down 
into a chair. 

“Yes — what else could you do?” he repeated 
heavily and bitterly; “chained as you are to a fugi- 
tive and a criminal — ^bearing a name stained for- 
ever — how could you venture to grasp the gift of 
Fate? Oh, to think that I should stand between 
my own child and her fortune 1” 

“Papa 1 ” cried Irma, between laughter and tears, 
startled by so unwonted a breach in the monoto- 
nous grey wall of his habitual reserve; “but you are 


190 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

not standing between me and anything! I swear 
to you that I am sacrificing nothing. I could never 
marry Mr. Potts, even if — if nothing had hap- 
pened.” 

She was kneeling beside him, gently forcing up 
his bowed head, in order to give him the assurance 
of her eyes. It was a long and mistrustful look 
which he took into those eyes, but slowly it brought 
him conviction. 

“And yet it is a wonderful chance!” he said, in 
a tone that had now become speculative. “The 
man is a good sort, I think, and he seems sincerely 
attached to you. And there can be no doubt about 
his fortune, I suppose?” he added, with a touch of 
hesitation, and looking away now from Irma’s face. 

“Oh, he’s hugely rich, I believe.” 

“And riches don’t tempt you at all?” 

Irma fell into a momentary reflection. 

“Ah, yes — they tempt me; but — ^not in Mr. 
Potts’s company.” 

“And yet his attachment must be very genuine,” 
persisted Harding, his eyes once more shifting from 
beneath his daughter’s look, while the play of the 
fine wrinkles on his face betrayed the uneasy work- 
ing of some thought behind. 

“I believe it is genuine.” 

“And quite disinterested, of course. The cir- 
cumstances prove that up to the hilt. A man like 
that might even be ready for sacrifices, might he 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 19 1 

not ? There is no doubt, at any rate, that he could 
afford them.” 

“What sort of sacrifices, papa? I don’t under- 
stand. What are you thinking of ?” 

“Just a passing idea. Stained names have been 
washed clean ere now by a pecuniary sacrifice; and 
it requires no more than that to put right the wrong 
I committed. If these people were satisfied — the 
unfortunates who were my victims — I could show 
my face again. Your mother even might forgive me 
— perhaps ; or, at least, I could die with the knowl- 
edge that the shame was lifted.” 

He spoke in an almost breathless hurry, a faint 
streak of red appearing in his sallow cheeks and 
about his sunken temples. Since the day of their 
common flight it was the first plain reference to that 
load of unliftable shame under which he dumbly 
fretted ; and, even to his daily companion, the fever 
of his tone was a revelation. In silent expectation 
she gazed at him, waiting for the further words 
which she saw trembling on his lips. 

“Just an idea, you know. In summer, that time 
after the Zoo, when he came back to inquire after 
my health — it was so clearly a pretext — I could not 

help thinking Just supposing, now, that you 

had felt any sympathy for this young man — if it 
had been possible for you to think of him as your 
husband — what a wonderful chance that might have 
been — always supposing that he actually is the man 
to — to come up to the occasion.” 


192 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

He gave her a sharp look of inquiry, which Irma, 
despite her aching heart, could not but answer with 
a smile, the image of Mr. Joseph Potts being still 
too fresh in her mind to let the humorous side of 
the situation keep decently out of sight. 

“I see, papa,’’ she said, softly laying her hand 
upon his; “but you needn’t regret my want of in- 
clination, for of one thing I am quite sure: Mr. 
Potts would never be the man to make your dream 
come true.” 

“No — I suppose not — it was only an idea,” said 
Harding, all the eagerness gone abruptly from both 
voice and face. “Probably it will never come true. 
How should it? It would have been too good for 
real life — the debt to those unfortunates and the 
debt to you blotted out at one stroke ! Such things 
don’t happen!” 

“To me?” 

“Yes — yes — the heaviest of them all. Your 
youth eaten up by my age — your spotlessness black- 
ened by my sin — and no chance of repaying 1 Oh, 
it stings, it stings 1” 

Groaning, he covered his eyes with his gaunt 
hands, but not before Irma had caught in those pale 
blue eyes a look she had never seen there before — 
a look in which something like anger seemed mixed 
with the anguish, and which she could not explain, 
never having yet undergone the galling pressure of 
benefits unredeemed. 

Even without this understanding the impression 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 193 

left by the interview w,as a painful one. She Knew 
now that her father was less consoled, less resigned 
even than she had dared to hope. Deep pity seized 
her anew, so deep as to set her ruminating as to 
whether, under given circumstances, she could ever 
have accomplished the sacrifice of becoming Mrs. 
Joseph Potts, and to end by feeling grateful that 
he was so obviously not the man for the occasion. 
Poor Mr. Potts ! How easy it was to picture the 
horror upon that baby face at the hearing of her 
real name! The horizon in which commercial re- 
spectability loomed so big would certainly never be 
able to embrace her family misfortune. Even it 
appeared a question whether the exigencies of that 
spotless business conscience, which nothing can dis- 
turb more deeply than any tampering with the al- 
mighty dollar, might not compel him to communi- 
cate with the police. To a generous silence he 
might possibly stretch — certainly not tO' more. 

The Mr. Hartm.ann whom he pronounced “re- 
spectable” might hope for a place at his board; but 
the defrauding bank director — oh, horror 1 

No, that marriage would always have been im- 
possible. If any marriage ever were possible, it 
could only be one in which her father would, so 
to say, be taken over in the bargain — in which, in- 
stead of losing a daughter, he would gain a son. 
Which would presume a very great love, and also 
a com.plete independence of the opinions of men, 
and of their favours. 


194 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Here, without any apparent reason, Irma began 
to think suddenly of that day in Fortague Street 
when she had last seen Mr. Denholm. On that 
occasion she had made an astonishing discovery — 
she had discovered that this man was in her power. 
Up to what point ? Of this she could not be sure. 
It depended upon his own powers of resistance ; for 
obviously he was resisting. She had seen it all 
within the few minutes of their brief interview, 
read it in the intense question of his eyes, in the 
would-be scorn of his tone. Of dark motives his 
reserve of attitude had by this time absolved him. 
What then? Far, far in the back of her head Irma 
had brought away from that interview an idea that, 
if she chose to put out her powers, she might pos- 
sibly overcome the resistance; but even in the mo- 
ment of recognising this she had decided that the 
powers should not be put out. Why? Because he 
was indifferent to her? The answer dragged. But 
that was neither here nor there. The real reason 
for her instant decision was the manifest impossi- 
bility of the thing. She did not belong to herself ; 
she belonged to her father. In the moment of 
espousing his cause she had renounced all private 
happiness. 

And once more she had armed herself against a 
danger which apparently did not exist, since upon 
the meeting in Fortague Street there had followed 
a great blank, not enlivened by so much as a single 
encounter in the park. Whether the traceless dis- 


>POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 195; 

appearance of “the diplomat” meant voluntary 
flight or official transference to some foreign post 
mattered little. The chapter was evidently closed. 
On the whole it might be wisest to consider the 
matrimonial chapter generally as finally closed, and 
to rehearse the r^le of old maid, which she had 
hitherto thought synonymous with “old cat.” Yet 
some old maids were not a bit like cats — Miss Ben- 
nett, for instance, whose absence from London 
helped to make the late summer months drag so 
heavily. Such bright spots those two days a week 
had been. For in Fortague Street she was treated 
not like a teaching-machine, but like a human being. 
Without having asked a single indiscreet question, 
or, indeed, any question at all, Minna had somehow 
managed to convey to the girl the impression of an 
almost motherly interest in her person and her do- 
ings. Hitherto Pattie had been the only thing in 
the shape of a friend which the wilderness of Lon- 
don had afforded the exile. Even now Pattie still 
kept her humble place, but Miss Bennett bade fair 
to fill another, hitherto perforce vacant. 

All the emptier the months during which Lon- 
don, for all its sweltering life, presented some of 
the features of a burnt-out volcano. The fever of 
gaiety, the plotting of social intrigue, the hot pur- 
suit of success, of invitations, of eligible husbands, 
had left behind it a dryness and exhaustion of which 
the dusty leaves and the closeness of imprisoned air 
seemed but the material expression. To a stranger’s 


196 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

eye the streets might seem full ; to that of the Initi- 
ated they were empty, though only In fashion’s 
haunts were the symptoms glaring — in lowered 
blinds, in areas once lively with the clatter of plates 
and the hiss of cooking-pots, now animated only by 
some emaciated cat, hunting for some possibly for- 
gotten bone of past banquets. In the park, ’Arriet’s 
plumed hat took triumphant possession of what had 
once been the seats of the Mighty, while In the 
desecrated Row indescribable females In home-made 
habits bumped along gleefully upon hired hacks. 

The weariness of It all was enhanced for the ex- 
iles by the acuter anxieties of this almost breadless 
season. Harding had found temporary employ- 
ment as foreign correspondent In a shipping office. 
With this, and with the advance upon the lessons 
to be resumed in autumn, which Miss Bennett 
had pressed upon Irma, it had been possible to get 
through the summer — but not much more than 
possible. 

Another thing without which it would have been 
difficult to get through the summer was the Ora- 
tory; for Irma’s enforced Idleness left her too much 
time to think, too much leisure to worry over such 
things as her father’s health, for Instance. More 
than once, alarmed by his bloodless face and dull 
eyes, she had urged medical consultation ; but from 
this Harding shrunk obstinately, having since the 
rencontre in the Zoo become more conspicuously 
nervous regarding possible recognition. Lately, 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 197 

Irma had got into the habit of carrying these private 
worries to the same spot where she had for the first 
time in her life consciously prayed. It was a strange 
fact that contact with her own faith had come to 
her only in this country of “heretics”; and yet not 
strange, since convictions, either religious or politi- 
cal, burn ever the brightest beneath the breath of 
antagonism. Here, in the enemy’s country, she saw 
fervour for the first time, emanating from people 
who in a friendlier atmosphere would probably 
have sunk to the somnolent laxity of her former ex- 
periences. At its touch her own drooping faith put 
out fresh blossoms, and so conscious was she of her 
gain that she got as far as an experiment upon her 
father. Shyly and shamefacedly, seeing him in the 
depth of one of his despondent fits, she had sug- 
gested a visit to the Oratory. Harding, though vis- 
ibly surprised, made no resistance — just as little as 
he had resisted when at the time of his marriage he 
had, for the “simplification” of matters, been asked 
to adopt Isabella’s faith. But the experiment was 
a failure. So plainly did Irma read this in the wan- 
dering eyes that the attempt was not repeated. That 
flower of faith which in her young heart had so 
joyfully struck root could find no foothold in this 
weary and wornout soil, exhausted by a life of 
money-making, sucked dry by a human love that 
verged on idolatry. Where a goddess reigns su- 
preme there is small room for a god. 

The long, empty time was over now. Even be- 


198 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

fore the reappearance of the “Cerberus” one or two 
former pupils had resumed their lessons, Miss Ben- 
nett among others. By a certain blankness of feel- 
ing following upon that first lesson in Fortague 
Street, Irma became aware that she must have gone 
there in a state of subconscious expectation. That 
had been a week back, and the blankness persisted, 
quite illogically; for that there should be no men- 
tion of the “diplomat,” and no encounter in the 
park, was surely the natural and probable event. 
Most likely he was composing treaties — or what- 
ever it was that diplomats composed — at the other 
end of Europe — if in Europe at all. Strange how 
long the coming winter seemed under the illumina- 
tion of this quite disconnected fact. Even life itself 
had taken on a trick of stretching out before her 
mind’s eye with the monotony of a road that has no 
turn — and with something of its greyness, too. 


CHAPTER II 


THE ''show” 

A KEEN, clear September day under that pecu- 
liarly northern sky which has the pale, greenish- 
blue tint of a bird’s egg, with the hum of wind in 
the pine-trees on the heights married to the tinkle 
of water in the depths, in a union which will never 
know divorce, and with Vincent Denholm, minus 
a necktie, on his back upon the gentian-spangled 
hillside, taking deep breaths of the perfect air. 

“Yes, I am cured,” he was confiding to the near- 
est pine-tree — a knowing-looking veteran with flow- 
ing lichen beard. “Jus^: shows how much depends 
on taking a thing in time. Never felt cooler or 
more reasonable in my life — which isn’t saying lit- 
tle, my hoary friend, though it may amuse you to 
shake your head at me. Nothing like air of this 
quality, combined with plenty of exercise, for quash- 
ing anything in the shape of fever. The distemper 
is over, and the puppy is going in future to be a 
healthy puppy, and to do its little tricks all right. 
The dose of sulphur has sufficed, and I can go back 
safely to that confounded Foreign Office, which 
199 


200 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

hasn’t found me a ticket yet, hang it ! Mercy, how 
blue those gentians are, and how the pine-branches 
stream out against the sky! If you half-shut your 
eyes they don’t look like pines at all. Let’s see^ — 
what is it they do look like?” 

J|t sft * ♦ ♦ ♦ 

And a month later, another day: a murky Octo- 
ber day, this, with “London grease” as plentifully 
spread upon the pavements as butter is, in unthrifty 
households, spread upon bread; and overhead a 
grey vault, which did not drip down in rain only 
because it was apparently still hesitating as to 
whether it had not better dissolve into fog. 

In Vincent’s attitude and appearance as great a 
contrast. Far from sprawling in easy attire, he 
stood to-day rigidly upright, in garbs of ceremony, 
gazing upon a spectacle which, though possibly less 
soothing, appealed to him far more directly than 
had done the Norwegian hillside, and the enjoy- 
ment of which he owed to a certain royal, or semi- 
royal, foreigner, who had lately betaken himself 
from an earthly kingdom to a heavenly one^— or 
so, at least, it was politely taken for granted. The 
august foreigner having been a Catholic, the tribute 
to his memory necessarily entailed the presence of 
the corps diplomatique and of various ministerial 
personages at a papistical place of worship — in this 
case the Brampton Oratory. 

Many were the state coaches that followed each 
ether down Brompton Road, and dense the crowd 


POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 201 


about the gates to watch the descent of personages 
resplendent in the uniforms of all countries, with 
breasts blazing with orders as thickly set as the 
flowers in a carpet-bed; so over-decorated, some of 
them, that it seemed a wonder they did not sink 
under the weight of their honours. In the matter 
of an object-lesson upon the text of the clothes mak- 
ing the man, nothing like the corps diplomatique in 
full fig for giving it. Here it is that an assembly 
of what, without the attending circumstances, would 
be a collection of more or less used-up old world- 
lings — with the pallor of bureau-work fighting upon 
their flabby faces against the marks of high living, 
and with the atmosphere of the Court more than 
of the bureau, and of the boudoir more than of the 
Court floating about their betressed and perfumed 
persons — are turned by suggestion into the very 
symbols of power. And not to the vulgar public 
eye alone. Vincent himself, a part of the pageant 
— though but a modest and quite unresplendent 
part — was vividly conscious of the impression. In 
those old men with the pouched eyes and the shaky 
legs, whom the gorgeous footmen were so respect- 
fully assisting to alight, he was looking at his own 
future — minus the shaky legs, which he confidently 

hoped to escape. They were not Prince A , or 

the Marquis de B , or the Duke of C to 

him, as little as to the gaping crowd ; they were Ger- 
many, and France, and Russia — they were Power 
personified; and yet not such power as he hoped 


202 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


some day to personify — since to stand for the Brit- 
ish Empire surely meant to touch the pinnacle of 
human ambition. 

Even the sparkle of the diamonds upon the deco- 
rations, even the plumes upon the head-coverings, 
did their part. It was with a flash of that self-scorn 
which sometimes visited him that Vincent recog- 
nised it. Call it a “sham” as much as you like — it 
did what it was meant to do. The solemnity of 
the requiem mass could not but heighten the impres- 
sion. Seldom had Vincent felt in a better humour 
with himself and his profession than when, in the 
wake of his chief, he descended the Oratory steps. 

And then, abruptly, right into the middle of his 
vision of the future came a shock, dealt by a pair 
of eyes seen swiftly in the crowd, and lost again, 
and yet more than merely seen, actually met, during 
that one passing moment. No mistake possible. 
As at the stroke of a stage director’s signal, the 
“show” sank out of sight and a single face usurped 
its place. The first sensation had been one of un- 
reasoning joy, the second of painful distaste. To 
see her in the closely packed crowd, jostled by the 
mob of both sexes, offended something within him. 
He did not know whether it was the pleasure or the 
displeasure which had set a-going this strange 
thumping motion behind his frock-coat. Which- 
ever it was, it sent him home tongue-tied, and with 
his victorious humour considerably dashed. 

And this not a month since he had lain on his 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 203 

back on the hillside and confided his recovery to 
the pine-tree, which, by the by, had wagged its 
beard at him, as he now distinctly remembered I 
Disconcerting, to say the least of it. 

Sitting down to think it out over a solitary pipe, 
he began to understand a few things ; for instance, 
why, of all the mountain flowers, he had never been 
distinctly aware of any but the gentians, looking 
at him from out of the grass like so many blue eyes ; 
and why the pine-branches streaming out against 
the sky had tantalised him with visions of dark 
tresses unbound and floating in the breeze — tresses 
which, of course, he would never see unbound, 
though some luckier man might — some man who 
would not require to sacrifice his private feelings 
to his career. For, of course, they were going to 
be sacrificed. No thought of surrender had yet 
touched him. A hard fight was it going to be, in- 
stead of the mere skirmish he had fancied? Well, 
so much the worse, or perhaps so much the better, 
and how much sweeter the victory ! 

His lean jaw set so grimly that he all but bit 
through the pipe between his teeth. But the thought 
which followed was coloured by a certain self-dis- 
trust gathered from late events. 

“All the same, I wish that appointment wouldn’t 
hang fire much longer. I’ve a notion that the air 
of any other capital would suit me better just now 
than that of London.” 

* * >K sk 


204 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“Bob Rendall ?” said Lady Aurelia, with a pro- 
testing uplifting of her yellow hands; “whatever 
you do, Minna, my dear, leave me alone with Bob 
Rendall! What do I care whether youVe had a 
letter from him or not? All about planting and 
sowing, of course, and oxen and pigs, and just when 
I’m thanking my stars on my knees for getting away 
from farmyards and fields and greenstuff in gen- 
eral, and beginning to feel like a human being 
again, instead of a dairy-maid. I beg that you do 
not press Bob Rendall’s virtues upon me. What- 
ever you do, give me room to fall 1” 

Poor Bob had never stood high in Lady 
Mummy’s graces, representing as he did an aggra- 
vated example of that type of degraded person who 
“lives in the country and keeps a trap” — only that 
in this case the country was the veldt, and the trap 
presumably an ox-waggon. The yearly purgatory 
of country-house visits barely absolved, and revel- 
ling in the first glee of recovered town sensations, 
the dowager could not possibly spare attention for 
people of this description. London was, of course, 
not as good as St. Petersburg or Paris, but it stood 
miles above the various “Halls” and “Castles” re- 
cently endured, and in which it had been her sad 
lot to sit out conversations upon such distressingly 
rural topics as the best arrangements of herbaceous 
borders, and even discussions upon the respective 
merits of Plymouth Rocks versus Speckled Ban- 
tams. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 205 

“In the country,” as Lady Aurelia was accus- 
tomed to define the situation, “it either rains, and 
you can’t go out, and have to sit in a room full of 
dogs and gardening catalogues and conversation to 
match, which is bad enough ; or else It doesn’t rain, 
and then you are expected to go out and admire the 
results of the catalogues, which is much worse.” 

“Let Bob Rendall go to the — you needn’t look 
at me so hard. Cissy; I’m not going to swear, but 
only to remark that he had better betake himself 
to the kopje or the kraal, or whatever It Is they call 
their things out there, while we discuss more thrill- 
ing topics — in first line this morning’s show. That’s 
what I want to hear about. I’ll never forgive that 
knee of mine for keeping me out of It. As if it 
couldn’t have reserved Its pranks for one of the 
times In the country, when one’s bed Is one’s best 
refuge, an)way I But no, it must trick me of one 
of the few chances of seeing them all In a bunch 
together!” 

(“They,” as In this household is almost super- 
fluous to specify, stood for the corps diplomatique.) 

“Oh, It was lovely!” said Cissy, with the rap- 
turously regretful sigh of the outsider who has not 
always been an outsider; for what was even Vin- 
cent’s presence In the pageant beside the glories of 
former days ? After having felt oneself an integral 
ingredknt in the European Concert, It is not easy 
with a good grace to take a seat among the ordi- 
nary public. 


2o6 pomp and circumstance 


If Cissy’s sigh was not echoed by Chrissie it was 
only because at this moment she was occupied in 
replenishing the cup of a tall young man with a 
silky black moustache and shiny hair brushed so 
close to his head as almost to present the appearance 
of a neatly fitting black satin skull-cap. This gen- 
tleman, too, had formed part of the morning’s 
pageant, being the Conte Guido Galliani, attache 
to the Embassy of His Majesty Victor Emmanuel. 

Yet Cissy’s sigh found an echo — in the ex- Am- 
bassador, who had not been able to resist the temp- 
tation of lacerating his own feelings by contemplat- 
ing the spectacle which to him represented the past, 
just as plainly as to his son it stood for the future. 

“A fine sight, undoubtedly. In fact, I had no 
idea how fine a sight it was,” he added, with his 
winning smile, “until I saw it from the outside, so 
to say.” 

“But I want an account from some one who saw 
it from the inside. The Conte — hum, the Conte 
seems pretty well occupied ; always a pity to disturb 
an entente cordtale^ I say. But there’s Vincent. 
Where is Vincent? Why is the boy lurking in the 
shadows? Doesn’t he know that I’m waiting for 
his impressions of the show? Now, don’t try and 
tell me that it left you cold !” 

“No, it didn’t leave me cold at all, granny; quite 
the reverse.” 

“Could so much pomp and circumstance leave 
any but the most hardened philosopher cold?” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 207 

It might have been by mere chance that Minna’s 
eyes and those of Vincent encountered just then. 
Yet it was as a challenge that he took the words, 
and answered them as such. 

“Outward form, if you like; not a thing in itself, 
but the expression of a thing. So long as there is 
something worth expressing behind it I don’t see 
how you can logically call the form empty.” 

“Dear me, was I calling it anything?” asked 
Miss Bennett, innocent-eyed. 

“Talking of pomp and circumstance,” mused Sir 
Christian, lost in reminiscences, “all this is nothing 
to the Russian way of doing things. Now, I recol- 
lect during my St. Petersburg time ” 

“Oh, Vincent, do you know what the Conte is 
saying?” broke in Chrissie’s voice from the tea- 
table. “He has just been offering to stake his soul 
— or his gold watch, I forget which — upon the 
chances of separate Hungarian representation with- 
in the next five years.” 

“Then you mustn’t give up your Hungarian. By 
the by, how is it getting on?” 

Cissy had asked the question before she remem- 
bered that it might have been better not to ask it, 
and looked apprehensively towards her grand- 
mother, who, owing to the obstacles to mastication 
presented by a slice of plum-cake, had been kept 
out of the talk for some moments. 

“You couldn’t expect it to get on in Norway,” 
said Vincent, a trifle irritably, as it struck Minna. 


208 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“And you aren’t contemplating putting him 
through an exam., I hope,” cut in Lady Aurelia, 
sharply, having by this time overcome the plum- 
cake. “I want to hear more about the show, Vin- 
cent. Nothing original about the condolences, I 
sup.pose? Did the Marquis use his pocket-hand- 
kerchief? He’s a dab hand at crocodile tears. Any 
hon-mots a-going? Next to treaties, there’s noth- 
ing like mourning services for bon-mots, I notice.” 

But if Lady Aurelia had meant to get away from 
Hungary, as a possibly delicate ground, her efforts 
were not seconded by Minna, who just then bluntly 
remarked : 

“I’ve been reading a book about Hungary, a 
German book, called ‘Die Legion Klapka.’ I can 
read German quite decently now, you know; and 
with a future ambassador to Budapest in my rela- 
tionship, I naturally consider it my duty to study 
the Hungarian question. It’s an awfully enlight- 
ening book.” 

“Ah, ‘The Legion Klapka,’ ” said the Conte, 
drawing near, with interest plainly piercing upon 
his pale, intelligent face. “Yes, it is enlightening, 
is it not? It geeves you so good an idea of the 
national situation.” 

But for the occasional dragging of a vowel — 
vain attempts at the softening of a barbarous tongue 
— the Conte’s English was perfect. 

“Yes. But it enlightened me on other points, 
too: for instance, Bismarck’s prodigious genius in 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 209 

the matter of making fools of his allies, as well as 
mincemeat of his enemies. The skill with which 
he egged on the Hungarian rebels to form their 
illicit battalion, and the neatness with which he 
dropped them, exactly like a hot potato, in the mo- 
ment he found that he could do without them, fills 
me with wondering admiration.” 

“Yes, yes,” agreed the Conte, eager and bright- 
eyed, “he was our master — no doubt of it.” 

“And yet, to look at his face, you would take 
him to be just a good, honest bulldog.” 

“That’s the beauty of it,” chuckled Lady Aurelia. 
“Nothing like a bulldog face for throwing dust in 
the eyes.” 

“It was a political necessity,” said Vincent, who 
had been moving uneasily on his chair. 

“What was? To bribe soldiers to break their 
oath of fealty, behind your adversary’s back, while 
before his face you keep up all the forms of legiti- 
mate warfare? If those are political necessities, 
then — ^why, then, I’m rather glad I’m not in poli- 
tics,” finished Minna, with her comfortable laugh. 

“All is fair in love, war — and diplomacy,” said 
Sir Christian, while an airy gesture of his white 
hand seemed to wave aside all such petty considera- 
tions. 

“Even things which, called by their names, would 
be blackguardism in private life?” 

“Ah, but we don’t call things by their names,” 
smiled the Conte, brilliantly and sweetly. “We 


210 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

would be unworthy of our profession if we did 
that. We follow the evangelical counsel of being 
wily as the serpent, you know.” 

‘‘And leave out the other half about the dove? 
I see.” 

“Really, Minna,” laughed the gleeful dowager, 
who would, perhaps, have been enjoying herself 
less if she had thought of observing Vincent’s face, 
“you’re not up to the rudiments of the trade. Why 
not bring out the copy-book at once and tell us that 
honesty is the best policy?” 

“You’re forgetting your Georges Sand, Minna, 
my dear,” put in Sir Christian, with a playfully ad- 
monishing shake of his fluffy white head. “Don’t 
you know that ^La franchise d!un diplomate serait 
le mensonge d!un particulier?’ ” 

“Excellent! excellent!” laughed the delighted 
Conte, showing a set of teeth as delicate as those of 
a woman and as incisive-looking as those of a squir- 
rel. “That’s what I always say; we’re the licensed 
liars, just as the soldiers are the licensed mur- 
derers.” 

“Oh, Conte, that sounds almost wicked,” said 
Chrissie, with a glance of not too severe reproof, 
while Vincent put in sharply : 

“But our license only extends to white lies.” 

“The colour of the lie seems to me to be entirely 
a subjective question. To some people I imagine 
that all lies are always black.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 21 1 


Minna did not look at Vincent as she said it; but 
nevertheless he bit his lip, as at the sting of a shaft. 

“Only to the fools,” decided Lady Aurelia. 
“Why, it’s the quintessence of the game of life, 
which is just one big humbugging of other people, 
as we all know.” 

“And then it is so amusing,” put in the Conte, all 
smiles. He called it “amioosing,” which in no way 
obscured his meaning. 

“Isn’t it, just! Oh, it’s the serpents that have 
the best time of it, depend upon it, and not the 
doves. No sport half so good as leading people 
about by the nose, without their knowing that they 
are being led about, eh, Conte?” 

Vincent got up and walked to the window, where 
he stood drumming upon the panes with all his 
ten fingers at a time. His grandmother had a 
knack — quite unconsciously practised — of bringing 
out the baser side of his profession, which never 
failed to disturb him; but it had never disturbed 
him quite so much as to-day. That delight in in- 
trigue for intrigue’s sake — almost making an end 
of what should have been but a means — was just 
now peculiarly irritating, perhaps because since the 
discovery of the morning his nerves had not quite 
recovered their balance. 

Into the midst of his angry reflections broke his 
father’s musical laugh. 

“Ha, ha! I should think it was good sport! 
When I remember the way we led them about by 


212 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


the nose at the Mareggio Conference, during my 
Roman time ! Didn’t we just make them dance to 
our pipe — ha, ha !” 

“And, better still, the way you all of you together 
conspired to lead Europe about by the nose at the 
Vol au Vent Conference. Just as though you*hadn’t 
good enough dinners at home !” 

Recognising the bone of contention, the ex-Am- 
bassador’s face put on its cloak of official dignity. 

“My dear Lady Aurelia, I’m tired of explaining 
that ” 

“Then suppose you don’t explain, but leave us 
to form our own conclusions. That paper-cutter, 
now, the very one you’re holding in your hand, 
Conte, do you know its origin? No? Why, it’s 
Christian’s souvenir of the Valamow Conference; 
the only thing he could secure — inkstands, penhold- 
ers, and even blotting-pads all gone before. They 
scrambled for things at the end, you know; had to 
carry off relics of those happy fourteen weeks; 
though, personally, I should have thought the 
menus were relics enough. I’ll wager the Conte 
doesn’t know why a Russian meeting-place was de 
rigeur. Do you, Conte? Just because caviare 
doesn’t carry well, as every gourmand worth the 
name knows; and because several high statesmen 
considered that they wouldn’t have exhausted the 
experiences of life if they went to their graves with- 
out having tasted the article fresh. Upon my word, 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 213 

IVe a mind to call it ‘Caviare Conference/ for a 
change.” 

In the burst of laughter which followed, the out- 
raged ex-Ambassador’s protests were drowned, no 
attention being over for him — unless, indeed, Lady 
Aurelia’s muttered ^^FarceurP* may possibly have 
been directed to his address. 

“How amioosing! Oh, how amioosingl” assured 
the Conte, with an instinctive laying of his hand 
upon his heart? as the most eloquent means of em- 
phasising his delight. 

* * * * * 3|f 

“I am sure the Conte Galliani will make a charm- 
ing ambassador,” said Minna to Vincent, as to- 
gether they descended the stairs; “and such a happy 
one, too! Coming my way? No?” 

“No, I am not coming your way,” said Vincent, 
with a certain stiffness; and, having ceremoniously 
helped his cousin into her hansom, he walked oft 
solitary, in quite a different mood from the one in* 
the morning. He was not feeling at all pleased 
with Minna; and, what is more, Minna knew it, 
and yet* smiled to herself in the depths of her han- 
som in an obviously impenitent fashion. 


CHAPTER III 


IN THE HEART OF THE FOG. 

“Are you sure you hadn’t better give it just an- 
other quarter of an hour? It may lift yet; it often 
does before evening.” 

“It has lifted a little already. I am afraid that 
quarter of an hour would just encourage it to come 
down again. Thank you, Miss Bennett, but my 
father may be getting anxious. I promised to be 
home by daylight, though this isn’t daylight really.” 

It was anything but daylight. The gas, which 
had not been turned off since morning, showed dusk- 
ily brown window-panes; and even in the closed 
space a certain dimness floated, giving a slightly 
woolly outline to things in general. De Wet, per- 
haps aware of the unbecoming atmosphere, was 
living up to his name by having disappeared 
bodily into his basket, where he lay shivering under 
an embroidered cover. 

“A hansom?” suggested Minna, but not hope- 
fully. 

“Who’s to And it? And how is it ever to find 
Filbert Gardens ? I was told a story the other day 
214 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 215 

of a hansom-driver who had got off his seat, in order 
to lead his horse, and who couldn’t find it when 
he was down, but wandered off into the fog, leav- 
ing his unfortunate fare stranded. No, no — there 
is nothing for it but to grope one’s way, and that 
one can only do upon one’s feet, you know.” 

“I wish you had not to grope it alone, though,” 
said Minna, with a sigh of dissatisfaction. 

Irma smiled gratefully. This was one of the 
moments that cheered her with the sense of sym- 
pathy. 

“Thank you, Miss Bennett. To hear you say 
that is almost as good as having an escort. But 
I’m getting quite used to it now — really, I am.” 

“Was it not uncomfortable at first?” 

“Very,” said Irma, frankly. “You see, abroad 
it’s different, and mamma was always so particular.” 

“Is it long since you lost your mother?” 

“I have not lost her; she is alive.” 

Irma stopped short. It was the first direct ques- 
tion which Miss Bennett had ever put to her, and 
suddenly she realised that, of course, her well-wisher 
must take it for granted that she was motherless. 
Her face both flushed and hardened, while she 
spoke quickly : 

“She is in Austria. Probably I shall never see 
her again. Yes, the fog is a little better; I really 
must go. Don’t be nervous about me. Miss Ben- 
nett. What is to happen to me, after all?” 

“I don’t know* All sorts of things happen. I 


2i6 pome and circumstance 

forget how many people have walked into canals 
during this week.” 

“Well, Fm not going near the canals, and I shall 
give the Serpentine a wide berth. Good-bye, Miss 
Bennett.” 

There was something apologetic in Minna’s part- 
ing pressure of the hand. She could not say what 
had forced that question to her lips. Evidently her 
curiosity on the subject of this girl was still far from 
satisfied. 

Downstairs, upon the door-step, Irma stood for 
a moment, like a person summoning courage to take 
a header into water. This was the fourth consecu- 
tive day during which London had had to take the 
existence of the sky for granted, and was beginning 
to have serious doubts regarding that of the sun. 
The degrees of gloom varied, but persisted, occa- 
sionally mocking the victims with the faint resem- 
blance of a release, only to smother them afresh. 
On the whole, it was much like living under a huge 
blanket which is held by the four corners, and being 
lowered and raised at the sweet will of the holders. 
Delicate lungs wrestled with the atmosphere, and 
even eyes that were not delicate smarted under its 
persistent sting. All day long the gas and electric 
lights made ineffectual yellow and white blotches 
upon the darkness ; all day long the dwellers by the 
river were wearied by the foghorn’s monotonous 
voice, which to impressionable minds always has in 
it something of a cry of distress. That almost 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 217 

theatrical appearance of fog-bound London was 
becoming habitual. People and things appeared 
and vanished like something in a murky transfor- 
mation scene. On the comparatively deserted pave- 
ment each pedestrian might think himself alone, 
until another appeared beside him, standing up as 
though out of a trap-door. 

Irma, with the plan of streets well before her 
mind’s eye — since to her body’s eye they were veiled 
— steered cautiously for the Marble Arch. Before 
she had reached it the blanket had come down again 
as low as ever. It was her ears as much as her eyes 
that warned her of the closeness of Oxford Street. 
Just as she was wondering whether her nerve would 
ever rise to the ordeal before it, she ran against 
something which she took to be a walking moun- 
tain, but which revealed itself as an arm of the law, 
and, in some inexplicable way, was spirited across 
in safety. 

“The Marble Arch?” she asked her huge pro- 
tector, rendered huger by the uncertainty of outline. 

He moved a vague arm in a given direction, and 
was simultaneously swallowed back into the fog. 

If Irma did not miss the Marble Arch to-day it 
was only because of the familiarity of the ground. 
Nevertheless, having reached it, she had another 
moment of hesitation. Her usual line to Albert- 
gate was shortest, but would not Park Lane be 
safer in such darkness as this? she asked herself, 
gazing into the yellow sea before her. 


21 8 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


“See you across, lidy?” 

Irma turned with a start. At her elbow stood 
a shabby, stumpy, grey-bearded individual, inquir- 
ingly touching his hat. The gesture was humble 
and the grey beard confidence-inspiring. Through 
the yellow gloom it shone like a label of respecta- 
bility. 

“Will it be safe?” she asked doubtfully. 

“Sime as Bank of England.” 

“And you are sure of the way?” 

“Sime as my packet.” 

“Very well. I will give you sixpence for taking 
me to Albert-gate.” 

“Pm your man, lidy,” said the old man cheerily, 
and began to move forward. “Just you sticks to 
me, and never fears !” 

Circumstances making propinquity appear advis- 
able, it was but natural that the guide should keep 
barely half a pace in advance of the guided. After 
a time, Irma noticed that his head turned rather fre- 
quently from side to side, and that he appeared 
to be peering through the gloom, perhaps in order 
to verify the direction. 

“Are you sure we are going right?” she once 
asked anxiously, to which he replied as encourag- 
ingly as before : 

“Just you sticks to mel” 

After another five minutes he seemed to be walk- 
ing slower and looking about him more carefully. 
Fearing to hurt his feelings by a renewed inquiry, 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 219 

Irma held her tongue, but in her heart of hearts 
began to fear that he had missed the way. Nor 
was there any soul near of whom guidance might 
be obtained. Since entering upon this walk they 
had not met another person. The park seemed 
as deserted as though it had been midnight instead 
of the middle of the afternoon. 

All at once the man stood still and faced round. 

“The first thing I’ve got to say, lidy, is that if 
yer scream I’ll knock yer down.” 

He said it so quietly and in so completely every- 
day a manner that Irma, though she heard the 
words, did not at once grasp the meaning. 

“How do you mean?” she asked mechanically, 
yet without conscious alarm. 

“I mean just that it would be better not to make 
a fuss. Work has been awful bad lately, and a pore 
man like me ’as to tike wot comes ’is way. That’s 
wot I be meanin’.” 

For an instant Irma did not feel her heart beat- 
ing; in the next it seemed to be hammering all over 
her body. She had seen his face, with the distorted 
mouth and the glistening eyes, fixed greedily upon 
her fur-trimmed jacket — one of the last remnants 
of Vienna splendour — and at the sight of her own 
monstrous imprudence confronted her with a sen- 
sation compounded of rage and shame. 

“What is it you want?” she asked, with arti- 
ficially steadied voice. 

“Nothin’ much — only yer jacket, and yer purse, 


220 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


and yer watch, and yer rings, and yer bracelets. If 
so be ye ’appen to ’ave any about yer. No call to 
look frightened, lldy. Pm not goln’ to ’urt yer — so 
long, that’s to say, as yer makes no fuss. I’ll just 
trouble yer to ’and them things over — thinkin’ as 
I do that you’d prefer doin’ It yerself. But I’ve 
no objection to ’elpin’ ye. If ye’re agreeable. Only 
keep bearin’ In mind that at the first hulloa ye let 
out ye’ll find yersel’ on yer back. No mortal good 
starin’ about yer, lldy. There ain’t many folks 
takin’ walks to-day.” 

For It was Irma now who turned her head from 
side to side, wildly trying to pierce the yellow cur- 
tain, painfully lending an ear for a possible ap- 
proach — uselessly, though, since the throbbing of 
her own pulses filled all her hearing. For all that 
she could see and hear, she was alone with this old 
ruffian In the heart of the fog — as much at his 
mercy as ever was traveller at the hands of the 
highwayman upon the loneliest country road. 

Plunging her hand Into her pocket, she held her 
purse towards him as though It had been a ransom. 
He clutched It, and said more roughly already : 

“The jacket now, and I’ll trouble you to look 
shairp. I’ve no mind to be disturbed over my 
work.” 

Irma measured him with a look of reluctant In- 
quiry. Despite his grey beard, he did not look 
feeble ; but neither was she feeble. For one second 
the thought of resistance shot through her. Then 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 221' 


she caught sight of his face again and saw his fists 
square. With trembling fingers she began to un- 
button her jacket, and at once felt herself roughly 
assisted in the task. In another moment it had been 
stripped from her shoulders. Of the muff the grey- 
bearded robber had already possessed himself. 

“The watch, now !” 

“It’s only silver !” pleaded Irma. The gold one 
brought from Vienna had long since gone to fill up 
a hole in the domestic budget. 

“ ’And it out, I say.” 

She fumbled at the chain, almost blindly; but 
even while her fingers jerked over the task her head 
flew up once more. Were those her pulses mocking 
her, or was that rhythmic beat of a step behind the 
curtain ? It was a glance into her plunderer’s face 
which gave her certainty, and with that certainty 
courage flamed again through her veins. 

With a quick half-step backwards, she raised her 
voice, shouting with all the strength of her young 
lungs; but only once, for the second “Help!” was 
already stifled by a rough hand upon her mouth. 
But her ears were not closed, and with their help 
she became as plainly aware of the unmistakable 
approach of help as of the furious oaths being mut- 
tered close at hand. 

“Where? where? Hold fast! I’m coming!” a 
man’s voice came to her from out of the mist, and 
the sound fired a new sense of resistance. Des- 
perately she now struggled, with her hand closed 


222 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


over the watch which, with his left, the man was 
attempting to add to the plunder. The thought of 
biting the fingers which closed her mouth was vivid- 
ly present to her mind — but impossible because of 
the tightness of the pressure. In another moment 
it was abruptly removed; another and a more fear- 
ful oath sounded in her ear; another grab — an in- 
effectual one — made at her watch ; a new figure, al- 
most unnaturally tall, surged up close at hand in 
the usual trap-door fashion, and through what ap- 
peared to be another trap-door the grey-bearded 
robber vanished. Trembling and gasping, Irma let 
herself go against what presumably was a support- 
ing arm. 

“Gone ? Which way did he make off ?” 

The rescuer was taking the deep, short breaths 
of one who has run hard. 

“I’ll catch him yet.” 

But with the movement he made, Irma’s hold 
upon the sleeve beside her tightened. 

“Don’t, don’t leave me alone!” she implored, 
with the frankness of terror. “Let him go — never 
mind, but I can’t stay alone 1” 

“All right; I’ll stop here. Don’t be frightened, 
Fraulein Hartmann; he sha’n’t touch you again.” 

Looking up into the face bending above her, 
Irma realised that it was Mr. Denholm’s arm to 
which she was clinging. The discovery did not 
particularly impress her. She was too excited just 
then to be much surprised at anything. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 223 

“Thank Heaven !” she murmured vaguely. “You 
came just in time.” 

Her teeth chattered between the words. With- 
out knowing that he did it, he laid one hand over 
the shaking fingers still clutching his sleeve. It 
seemed the most obvious way of quieting her dis- 
turbance. 

“Have I come in time? It doesn’t look like it. 
How you are shivering! Good Lord, your jacket 
is gone 1 Did that ruffian ” 

For the flash of a second the idea of pursuit again 
presented itself for consideration, only to be dis- 
missed as hopeless. 

“Wait a moment, Fraulein Hartmann.” 

He disengaged his arm from her fingers, not 
without a little gentle force, and getting quickly out 
of his overcoat, held it ready for her. 

“What does that mean?” she asked, blankly. 

“It means that you are to put this on.” 

She looked from it to him, and back again, doubt- 
fully. 

“But I can’t do that.” 

“You can, and you must. It is certainly more 
feasible than walking home in that flimsy dress.” 

“But you?” 

“I have a warm coat; I will take no harm.” 

“But it will look ridiculous,” objected Irma; and 
the remark was a most hopeful sign of returning 
self-command. 

“It won’t look anything, because nobody will see 


224 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

it. We’re only shadows to each other to-day; and, 
besides, it’s getting dark already. You can’t mean 
to say, surely, that your vanity prefers the risk of 
catching a certain cold to the look of an unbecoming 
garment ? Are you going to keep me waiting much 
longer, Fraulein Hartmann?” 

Before that tone of cool and almost severe com- 
mand Irma discovered herself to be helpless. With- 
out another word, and with something like a sigh 
of comfort, she slipped into the coat still tepid from 
contact with another human body. Here was 
warmth as well as safety. And here, too, was much 
more space than she required, for the collar 
mounted beyond her ears, and the sleeves descended 
to her finger-tips, while beyond each shoulder an 
unexplored cave seemed to bulge stiffly. 

“Oh, how funny I must look I At any rate, I 
won’t miss my muff.” 

The laugh which escaped her was like medicine 
to her shaken nerves. 

“Are you sure you won’t catch cold?” 

“Quite sure. And now I suppose we had better 
be moving on. I wonder in which direction Bromp- 
ton Road lies?” 

“Are you going to Brompton Road, too?” 

“I am. And it would simplify matters if you 
took my arm. It’s the only guaranteed way of not 
losing sight of each other.” 

Irma obeyed, still a little dazed, while Vincent, 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 225 

for another moment, used his eyes and ears tenta- 
tively. 

“We’re not on the Albert-gate line at all; of 
course, he naturally preferred greater seclusion. 
Well, we can but try our luck and hope for the 
best.” 

They moved on cautiously. 

“How fortunate that you should have been in 
the park, too!” said Irma, guiltless of after- 
thoughts, and busy only with the opportuneness of 
her rescue. 

“Most fortunate. I followed you — I mean that 
I happened to be behind you when you came to the 
Marble Arch, and it struck me that it would be just 
as well to keep you in my eye. So many accidents 
are heard of in this weather. But the fog beat me. 
I didn’t even make out that you had a guide. It 
was a frightful bit of imprudence — if you will allow 
me to say so” — came the correcting clause. “But 
it’s clear you don’t know London yet.” 

“It was the grey beard that did it. He looked 
such a respectable old man.” 

“Old?” 

Vincent repeated the word with a note of satis- 
faction. 

“He was old, was he?” 

“Oh, quite old — almost venerable, in fact. And 
I daresay he was very hungry.” Irma’s forgiving 
mood rather surprised herself; nor was it easy to 
understand what had become of that angry rebellion 


226 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

of a few minutes back, in which she had been ready 
to use even her teeth. 

“And did he — did he make himself very ob- 
noxious?” 

“Not so very. He was almost polite; though 
he helped me out of my jacket rather quicker than 
I liked.” 

She laughed again, and this time Vincent joined. 

“Did he get anything beyond the jacket?” 

“My muff and my purse — but that will have 
been a disappointment. I don’t believe there was a 
whole shilling in it.” 

“You will have to get a new jacket,” said Vin- 
cent, thinking aloud. 

She sighed, “Yes,” though somehow not feeling 
nearly as depressed as by rights she ought to be, 
considering what a really serious thing was the pur- 
chase of a new Winter jacket. Having glanced 
at the subject, she decided not to spoil the present 
moment by premature reflection — simultaneously 
becoming aware that there actually was something 
here susceptible of being spoiled. That angry feel- 
ing which had accompanied the talk about the ink- 
stand dress was to-day conspicuous by its absence. 
And what of the distrust once felt of this same man, 
at whose mercy she knew herself to be as absolutely 
as a short time back she had been at that of the 
grey-bearded ruffian? If the recollection had come 
near her she would probably have disbelieved it. 
But it did not come near her. Without reasoning 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 227 

and without reflection, she knew herself as safe by 
his side in the heart of the fog as she could ever 
have been by that of her father in the glare of 
daylight. She was tasting the unwqnted presence 
of a protector — a thing so often missed; 
so distinctly yearned after; and so sweet 
was the experience that other things sank 
away beside it. It was a universal relaxation of a 
will which had done much hard work within the 
past year — of a set of nerves strained beyond their 
due. She was content to walk on with him thus 
unresistingly through darkness and solitude, wher- 
ever he might choose to lead her. Nor was she 
aware of any impatience regarding the termination 
of their wanderings. 

For, despite Vincent’s perfectly honest efforts to 
hit off Albert-gate, it turned into a desultory and 
mostly haphazard tacking about in the double- 
shadows of fog and dusk, in the course of which 
they occasionally stumbled over wires, occasion- 
ally ran against trees, or, by the want of re- 
sistance under their feet, discovered that they 
had left the path — all of which accidents struck 
them both entirely in the diverting and never once 
in the provoking sense. The scorn which on his 
side, the haughtiness which on hers, had marked 
their last meeting were as things that had never 
been. Rather, they seemed like a pair of children 
having an adventure, out of which all the alarm was 


228 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


eliminated and nothing remained but the enjoy- 
ment. 

“It’s rather like playing at babes in the wood, 
isn’t it?” laughed Irma; “only without the wicked 
uncle.” 

“Oh, but the wicked uncle was there — you’re for- 
getting. He’s perhaps sold your jacket by this 
time.” 

“To be sure — I was really forgetting.” Some- 
how that part of the adventure seemed far away 
already. 

“And what happens if we don’t find that Gate? 
Will we be locked out, or what?” 

The question was quite serene. Even though 
she had wanted, she could not feel frightened any 
longer. 

“We’ll find it fast enough — too fast, probably.” 
But the last words did not achieve articulate pro- 
nunciation. 

So rare were the shadows which slipped past 
them, even in the more frequented paths now 
reached, that it was almost the same as having 
Hyde Park entirely to themselves. From time to 
time they would stand still and strain their hearing 
for the sound of traffic, as the only available means 
of guidance; and once, finding themselves suddenly 
on the very edge of the Serpentine, he instinctively 
grasped the hand upon his arm, as though with the 
thought of shielding her from a danger. 

A minute later dull points of fire began to prick 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 229 

through the gloom. To Irma they seemed part of 
the decoration of the fairy tale in which she had 
been living for the last half-hour — though in real- 
ity they were pointing to her the way out of the 
fairy tale, being the lights of Knightsbridge, strug- 
gling into sight. 

It was rather silently that the linked couple 
stepped out of Albert-gate. With the coming of 
darkness the fog had lifted sufficiently to let lamps 
and lanterns resume their usual functions, for which 
reason the night promised to be ever so much more 
transparent than the day had been. Abruptly Irma 
was visited by the acute consciousness of her strange 
attire. 

“It seems to me so horribly light here,” she com- 
plained, shrinking. 

Upon which Vincent, rather knowingly: 

“I know a remedy against that.” 

“Do you? What is it called?” 

“By-ways. WeVe only got to avoid thorough- 
fares and to slink along the worst-lighted openings 
we can find, of which, fortunately, the choice is 
large In this, our brilliant metropolis. Tell me 
where you wish to be landed, and Fll manage, all 
right.” 

“Filbert Gardens, off Cromwell Road. But, Mr. 
Denholm,” said Irma, rather precipitately, “you 
needn’t go further; really, I can manage by myself 
now — I am so used to going about alone.” 

“And my overcoat?” laughed Vincent. 


230 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“To be sure; I had forgotten.” 

“Looks rather as though you meant to treat me 
as you have been treated, does it not?” 

They laughed again together; upon which Irma 
discovered that her hand was still resting within 
Vincent’s arm, and attempted shyly to withdraw it. 

“What’s that for?” 

“It doesn’t seem necessary now, does it? I won’t 
lose you here.” 

“Just as you like, of course ; but it strikes me that 
if you don’t want the overcoat noticed it is better 
to keep close.” 

He said it in so admirable a tone of detachment 
that Irma decided to leave her hand where it was. 
To insist on the withdrawal would now have as- 
sumed a taint of prudishness. 

When they had got into the by-ways Vincent ap- 
peared to be ruminating, with the result of presently 
asking : 

“You don’t go about alone after dark, as a rule, 
do you?” 

“Not when I can help it; but I can’t always do 
that, you know.” 

The lantern under which they passed just then 
revealed a frown of displeasure. 

“And have you never had disagreeables — ^besides 
to-day, I mean?” 

Another lantern exposed a quick flush. 

“I don’t let them become disagreeables.” 

After that the silences grew longer ; but the fairy- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 231 

tale atmosphere seemed to have spread from the 
fog-drowned park to these narrow streets, in which 
even the cabbages exposed at the doors of humble 
greengrocers looked to Irma’s eyes as though they 
might have been grown in some witch-garden— 
why, the witch herself was occasionally to be caught 
sight of behind a counter, framed in a very cave of 
greenery — while the cod and flounders flabbily 
spread in the windows of third-rate fishmongers 
gleamed as mysteriously under a stray gas-jet as 
though they had all been enchanted princes caught 
in legendary fishermen’s nets. 

In time, by dint of mechanically given directions, 
Filbert Gardens was reached. 

They were on the door-step already, and the bell 
had actually been rung, when Vincent turned again 
to his companion. 

“I wish you would promise me something.” 

Her eyes asked “What?” though her lips were 
silent. 

“Never to be out after dark alone. You don’t 
know London, but surely your father ought to.” 

She did not answer — ^not because it had occurred 
to her that he had no right’ to demand any prom- 
ises, but because she was honestly at a loss what to 
say. Before she had found it the door was opened 
— ^by her father, in obvious agitation. 

“Irma ? Thank God ! I have been in such anx- 
iety ; it is nearly six o’clock. You are not alone ?” 

“This is Mr. Denholm, papa; he met me in the 


232 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

park. I have had an adventure, but nothing has 
happened to me — thanks to Mr, Denholm.” 

“Please come in,” said Harding, earnestly. “I 
cannot thank you in the street. What a fortunate 
chance! What sort of adventure, Irma? Dear 
me, child, what have you got on?” 

“That’s part of the adventure. You shall hear 
all about it; only you must promise not to laugh at 
me when you see me in the light.” 

Yet it was Irma herself w^ho laughed when, a 
minute later, she saw herself in the mirror above 
the mantelpiece, with a dwarfed head growing out 
of what seemed to be a cross-breed between a board 
and a sack. 

In the next moment she turned again in sudden 
confusion, for in the mirror she had caught sight 
of Mr. Denholm standing in the middle of the mis- 
cellaneous apartment and casting a rapidly scruti- 
nising glance at its tell-tale contrivances. In that 
moment she wished that it had been possible to say 
good-bye to him on the door-step ; but the overcoat 
alone would have ruled out that idea, let alone a 
decent sense of gratitude. She began to take off 
the offending garment in a hurry, Vincent mean- 
while giving Harding a brief account of the epi- 
sode in Hyde Park. All the time he spoke, and 
without again looking about him, he was vividly 
aware of the poverty-marked details of the room, 
as well as of the gallant efforts that had been made 
to conquer them — for which reason, and though 



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POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 233 

nothing appeared in his face, he spoke with a pang 
at his heart. 

“How fortunate ! What an extraordinarily for- 
tunate chance !’’ Harding repeated more than once; 
a remark to which Vincent neither assented nor de- 
murred, refraining only from any observation cal- 
culated to throw a doubt upon the purely accidental 
nature of the occurrence. 

The invitation to sit down was not accepted, per- 
haps because he had become aware of a certain 
embarrassment about Fraulein Hartmann’s man- 
ner, contrasting, oh, how strangely! with the in- 
souciance of that wandering in the fog. It would 
be as well to deliver her from his presence just then, 
which would simultaneously liberate him from the 
father’s quite superfluous gratitude. Having re- 
covered his overcoat, he therefore took leave briefly. 

“And this is all the home she has 1 ” he mused, as 
he went. “And that white-haired wreck her only 
protector!” 

His steps lagged, as though unwilling to leave 
the precincts of the dingy “Gardens,” while a 
dreamy warmth seemed wrapping round spirit and 
body alike — the fault of the overcoat, perhaps, 
whose pleasant glow made the bodily presence oi 
the last wearer appear to persist. 

Almost at the last house, he was roused from 
idle thoughts by a penetrating and persistent “toot,” 
and simultaneously a pair of brilliant eyes, glaring 
through the haze to which the fog had melted, 


234 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

turned the corner. It scarcely needed the well- 
known panting sound, nor a whiff of the now fa- 
miliar scent, to announce the presence of a motor- 
car. Vincent looked at it sharply as it leisurely 
passed him, having already slowed down. A motor- 
car had an uncomfortable place somewhere in his 
memory. This was not the identical vehicle met in 
summer, being a closed brougham ; but the face seen 
for a moment at the window belonged to the cate- 
gory of rosy, round faces which the one upon that 
other motor had likewise done. 

In a fit of curiosity he looked over his shoulder. 
So far as he could calculate, the motor-brougham 
had stopped before the identical house which he 
had just left. A doubt on the point being recog- 
nised as irritating, Vincent found it more satisfac- 
tory to cross the street and make himself miserable 
by the full assurance. Having got it, he made for 
the nearest hansom-stand and drove home, feeling 
as though his soul had suddenly become a shuttle- 
cock which some very happy feelings and some 
very unhappy ones were recklessly beating about 
from side to side. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SURRENDER 

Miss Bennett had just laid ready the copy- 
book and the German grammar against the im- 
pending lessons, and De Wet, having weighed the 
merits of the hearthrug versus those of his basket, 
had just decided in favour of the latter, when the 
door-bell rang, peremptorily. 

Minna glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. 

“Fraulein Hartmann already? It wants twenty 
minutes to the time.’* 

She went to the window — a window with real 
glass panes in it, in place of the mock brown paper 
of recent times, the fog having lifted some days 
back — ^but the visitor had already been admitted. 

A minute later she turned at the sound of the 
opening door. 

“Tow, Vincent? This isn’t your usual hour. I 
was expecting anybody but you.” 

“And wanting anybody but me, too, it would 
seem, to judge from the consternation of your face. 
It’s no use, Minna; I know this is your room, but 
I am not going to be turned out of it this time.” 

235 


236 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“The fact is,’’ said Minna, with an unusual touch 
of awkwardness, “I’m getting ready for my Ger- 
man lesson. In about a quarter of an hour ” 

“You expect Fraulein Hartmann — I know. But 
there’s plenty of time before that, and I want to 
talk to you — ^yes, you’re a paragon in looks, from 
the tip of your nose to that of your tail — ” (this 
par parenthese to De Wet, planted, expectantly, 
before him). “Are you going to ask me to sit 
down, by the by, or am I to take that part for 
granted?” 

He had taken it for granted already. 

“Does that mean that you are resuming ordinary 
civility? I suppose you are aware that you haven’t 
been near me since the day I ventured to express a 
favourable opinion upon the Conte Galliani’s 
future.” 

“Haven’t I?” said Vincent, abstractedly caress- 
ing the toy-terrier, his eye meanwhile showing none 
of the responding bellicose spark usually kindled by 
such challenges. 

Minna looked at him closely. 

“What is it, Vincent? What have you come 
for? Do you want me to do anything for you ?” 

“Yes. I want you to lend me your drawing- 
room.” 

“When?” 

“To-day.” 

“For how long?” 

“For half an hour.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 237 

“What are you going to do with it?” 

“I am going to propose to Fraulein Hartmann 
in it.” 

Before the quietly spoken words Minna sank 
back quietly in her chair, not like a person having 
received a blow, rather like one yielding to the pres- 
sure of a strong hand laid upon her chest. 

“What has happened, Vincent?” she asked, low 
and rather huskily. 

“All that has happened is that I have given up 
fighting. I imagined I was stronger than it, where- 
as it turns out that it is stronger than I am. I hon- 
estly believed that I had left its corpse in Norway, 
buried under the gentians and the fir-trees, instead 
of which I discover that it’s as alive as ever, and 
that the gentians and the firs were part of it, all 
the time.” 

“When did you discover this?” 

“On the day they buried that royal old sinner. 
She was in the crowd at the church-door, and our 
eyes just met. That was the discovery, but not yet 
the surrender. You mustn’t think me as easily 
floored as all that. I meant to stick it out, and I 
thought I would — till Tuesday.” 

Minna’s eyes asked questions, though her lips 
did not move. As though incommoded by their 
expectant gaze, Vincent got up, and, wandering, 
towards the fireplace, stood there with his elbow 
on the mantelpiece, and his hand shading his eyes, 
while he spoke down into the glowing coals. 


238 POMP. AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“That was the last day of the fog, you know. 
I was on my way here — not with any idea of a 
meeting, since I had no clue to your present ar- 
rangements, but just because I felt that a bit of a 
squabble with you might be stimulating. At the 
corner she passed me, not seeing me, though I made 
her out, right enough, fog and all. I knew at once 
that she would be coming away from here, and I 
followed her. I didn’t mean to speak to her — I 
swear I did not; but I hated the idea of knowing 
her alone on such a day. I suppose I tried to put 
it down to the account of Christian charity; any- 
way, I followed her, losing her and recovering her 
off and on as far as the Marble Arch, and then 
losing her for what seemed like good. Still I 
walked on, on what I believed to be the line to 
Albert-gate, but which, fortunately, turned out not 
to be that, since the ruffian who had undertaken to 
guide her across had, of course, struck a more re- 
mote path. Sometimes I thought I heard steps in 
front of me, and sometimes I thought I didn’t ; and 
at last — to cut a long story short — there came a call 
out of the thick of the fog, and I arrived just in 
time to see the man making off with her jacket and 
purse, and to help her to keep on her feet.” 

“Good God I” said Minna, below her breath. 

“That’s what I felt like, too. This is the bad 
, part of the story; now comes the good, for it was 
quite half an hour before we found Albert-gate, 
and during that half-hour she held to my arm, and 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 239 

I could almost feel her heart beating through my 
own overcoat, which, of course, I had made her 
put on. But she did not seem frightened, thank 
Heaven! and we laughed a good deal over our 
adventures. And then I took her home, of course, 
and had to submit to being thanked by the father ; 
and — well, that’s just how it was, Minna; don’t 
you see?” 

“Yes, Dsee,” said Minna, in that same low voice. 

“Since I have felt her holding on to me like 
that, and belonging to me, so to say,” went on Vin- 
cent, smiling down into the grate, as though he 
saw pictures in the fire, “I have found out that I 
can’t do without her. It’s a complete knock-down, 
I admit it — perhaps an ignominious one. I’m not 
sure that there isn’t a touch of the black arts in it. 
I’m positive, anyway, that that overcoat of mine is 
bewitched. I can’t put it on now without thinking 
— all sorts of things. Upon my word, I do believe 
it’s that confounded garment that has done it all 1” 
laughed Vincent, with a touch of entirely superficial 
anger. 

“And you have quite decided to ask her to marry 
you?” 

Minna spoke with her face bent over De Wet, 
now nestling upon her lap. It was she who now 
appeared to be inconvenienced by the meeting of 
the eyes, not being absolutely certain of what might 
be written in her own. Of course, she had always 
known that something like this would come some 


240 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

day — had even wanted it to come ; but even to such 
clear-sighted people as Minna it is always difficult 
to know in advance exactly how much a thing will 
hurt. 

“Would I be likely to be making this exhibition 
of myself if I had not decided?” 

“But your career?” 

He laughed derisively. 

“What miserable duplicity is this? As if you 
were not capable of seeing my career go to the 
dogs, without turning a hair! I dare you to look 
me in the face and deny it!” 

Apparently Minna still felt some difficulty about 
looking him in the face, but she had not yet done 
with an elaborate resettlement of the cherry-col- 
oured ribbon-bow which to-day enhanced the toy- 
terrier’s charms. 

“It isn’t duplicity; it is ” 

“A sense of responsibility towards the family? 
I know. But make your mind easy — the career is 
all right. I’ve thought it all out — ^been doing noth- 
ing else since Tuesday, in fact. It’s only one item 
that I am striking out of the programme — the one 
granny calls ‘the right sort of marriage,’ but 
which — since Tuesday — seems to me the wrong 
sort. The programme itself stands upright. Con- 
nexions are good things, of course; but I’ll get to 
the high places without them — trust me for that! 
It only means a rather harder fight, and I like fight- 
ing. I’ll do it, Minna ; see if I don’t !” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 241 

He looked, as he said it, magnificently obstinate 
enough to do it, having paced round from the fire- 
place now, and standing there with squared shoul- 
ders and jaw, and hands which seemed to have 
mechanically clenched in the depths of his pockets. 

“Besides,” argued Vincent, with that sort of vi- 
vacity which makes for self-conviction — “it isn’t 
nearly so mad as it looks. However obscure her 
family may be, there is absolutely nothing to be 
objected to her person. She would not only shine, 
she would reign in any drawing-room. Can you 
imagine any more perfect impersonification of a 
future ambassadress?” 

His eyes challenged Minna with the question. 

“I am not saying that I can. No, there is no 
objection to her person, but, Vincent, there may be 
other things.” 

Minna spoke wdth evident hesitation. 

“I am not sure that her mother is not under a 
cloud. It was only the other day that I discovered 
the existence of the mother; and Fraulein Hart- 
mann seemed distressed in mentioning her — said 
she would probably never see her again. Her par- 
ents seem to be permanently separated. I shouldn’t 
mention it if I did not tliink that you should do 
with open eyes whatever you do.” 

Vincent made the impatient gesture of one who 
waves something tangible but trifling to one side. 

“Bother the cloud ! It’s not the mother I want 
to marry — it’s the daughter. You’re as well aware 


242 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

as I am that these sorts of clouds are not unheard-of 
in the most exalted circles. Conjugal differences 
in the older generations could not possibly hamper 
the ‘career.’ Why, even in our own persons such 
things are almost regu, so long as they are cor- 
rectly managed. No, Minna, it’s no use throwing 
little sticks in my way. I’ve a vast opinion of your 
judgment, as you knows* but on this occasion I did 
not come to ask for advice, but to state an intention. 
I mean to marry Fraulein Hartmann — if she will 
have me, of course.” The last words were ob- 
viously an afterthought. 

“And have you any reason to suppose that she 
will have you?” 

Vincent gazed back at his cousin, haughtily sur- 
prised. It was clear that the contingency sug- 
gested had not been seriously considered. With 
the arrival at his own rather tremendous resolution 
the matter had appeared to him to be clinched. 
In the midst of her own trouble Minna could not 
suppress a passing smile, so clearly visible to her 
mind’s eye was the “swelled head” at that moment. 

“Well, we’ll soon see about that. Even if she 
likes me ever so little, it isn’t likely, is it, that she 
would say ‘No?’ And she did not seem to dislike 
me the other day.” 

“And have you thought of what granny will 
do to me if she hears that I have been instru- 
mental ” 

“You haven’t been instrumental. Whether here 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 243 

or in another place, I meant to do it — only I think 
it would be better here. I gathered from her talk 
the other day that she would be here to-day, and 
that’s why I am here. In their lodgings — such aw- 
ful lodgings, Minna — it would be much more awk- 
ward — for her; and I couldn’t be sure of finding 
her alone, since the sitting-room seems to be the old 
man’s bedroom as well. I’m haunted by the pic- 
ture of her in that horrible Filbert Gardens — 
makes me think of a jewel in a rubbish-heap. And 
she’s the sort of woman who needs surroundings — 
who is sure to suffer from the want of them. That’s 
why I have asked for the loan of your room. If 
you say ‘No^’ I’ll do the thing, all the same, of 
course, only it will be in a more uncomfortable and 
perhaps in a more unsuitable manner.” 

The eyes of the cousins met with a start, for 
just then the door-bell rang. Then, without a 
word, Minna rose and went quickly towards the 
door. 

“It’s better than making an excuse later,” she 
whispered, as she passed him. 

He snatched at her hand and kissed it, serenely 
unaware of his cruelty. 

“Thank you, Minna — thank you !” 

She smiled, not quite as calmly as she would have 
wished, and escaped upstairs. 

She could not remember his ever having kissed 
her hand before, though she had often seen him 
kiss that of his grandmother. 


244 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“I suppose it is about time to begin cherishing 
grandmotherly feelings,” she half-laughed, while 
dashing her hand across her eyes. 

There was no fire in her bedroom, and mechani- 
cally she took up a shawl. The mounting steps, 
the opening and closing door, the descending steps 
of Wilson — all was plainly audible in the small, 
thin-walled house. Trembling a little, partly with 
cold, Minna sat down, with closed eyes, behind 
which the scene being enacted under her feet, and 
of which even the tones reached her in a faint mur- 
mur, began to picture itself against her will. It 
was one of the moments in which her sense of hu- 
mour came victoriously to her aid. 

“This is being left out in the cold, with a ven- 
geance!” she laughed, pulling her shawl about her. 
“Was ever woman before turned out of her own 
drawing-room for exactly this purpose, I wonder?” 

“I will give him half an hour by the clock,” she 
had begun by saying. But the half-hour was far 
from past when the drawing-room door opened 
again and quick steps descended — ^not Vincent’s 
steps. That could only mean that he was alone in 
the drawing-room, and possibly in need of her. 

Instantly Minna became aware of nothing but 
alarm on his account. Flinging off the shawl, she 
hurried down. 

Vincent, with his back to the room and his hands 
in his pockets, was staring hard from the window. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 245 

“Alone, Vincent?” asked Minna, from the door- 
way. 

“Yes, alone,” he said, with an excellent show of 
coolness. “And, oh, by the way, Fraulein Hart- 
mann said she hoped you would excuse her to-day; 
she did not feel quite up to the lesson.” 

“That means?” 

“That means that she won’t have me.” He 
turned now, and, seeing his face, Minna knew the 
coolness, for all its excellent show, to be but a hol- 
low sham. She went close up to him and took his 
hand. 

“Vincent, I am sorry. I wish I could have done 
something.” 

Her voice shook with earnestness. To see him 
suffer was so much worse than suffering herself. 
But, besides the wounded look, there was something 
else upon his face — a cloud of perplexity which 
almost overshadowed the pain. 

At the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand, 
the sham coolness wavered. She could see him 
taking his underlip between his teeth in order to 
steady it. 

“Then you were mistaken, after all, in supposing 
that she cared for you?” 

A puzzled frown dug a line between his brows. 

“That is the strange part of it, Minna. I don’t 
believe even now that I was mistaken. I know 
you think me inordinately conceited; but, upon my 
soul and honour, I believe, after to-day, that I am 


246 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

— well, not Indifferent to her. I don’t believe she 
would have been so upset, nor have refused me so 
vehemently, if it were so.” 

“Then what reason did she give?” 

“None. Simply that she would not have me. 
I have a notion that there is some obstacle in the 
way.” 

“What sort of obstacle?” 

“A very tangible one,” said Vincent, with bit- 
terly contracted lips, “nothing less than a motor- 
car.” 

“What on earth do you mean?” 

“I scarcely know myself, but I have my suspi- 
cions. That time In summer, when I burst In here, 
you perhaps remember some talk about a motor In 
which I had seen Fraulein Hartmann? It was that 
meeting and the state of mind It disclosed In myself 
which sent me off to Norway. Well, on Tuesday, 
when coming away from Filbert Gardens, I met 
the same motor — no, not the identical vehicle, but 
one with the same man Inside it — and I saw him 
enter the house I had just left. That man Is called 
Potts, and Potts & Co. are about the biggest 
motor manufacturers In the United Kingdom, as 
I gathered from some talk In the club the other 
day. This man — the junior partner — Is a bache- 
lor. Do you follow me?” 

“Of course I do. But If she cares for you?” 

“She may care for money more. Pm in no dan- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 247 

ger of starvation, of course, but compared to Potts 
Pm a beggar.” 

Minna^s eyes kindled fiercely. 

“And you could still desire her, knowing her 
mercenary?” 

“No. But I do not know her mercenary yet. 
She may be sacrificing herself for her father’s sake. 
Supposing she has accepted him already, and feels 
herself bound?” 

“I see. But somehow I find it difficult to think 
of her selling herself, even for her father.” 

“So do I. And that’s why I think — no, I don’t 
know what to think” — broke off Vincent, flinging 
back to the window. 

Minna sat down and reflected. She was almost 
as puzzled as Vincent, and that Vincent was yet 
more puzzled than wounded was clear from his 
unexpected attitude under the repulse. If that re- 
pulse had been ascribed to indifference, his amour 
propre would have been smarting much more ob- 
viously. 

“Vincent,” said Minna, after a minute. 

“Well?” 

“Would it do you any good to get light upon 
the situation?” 

“Of course it would; but that’s impossible.” 

“I don’t think it is. Lately I have got pretty 
intimate with the girl, and I have been such a model 
of discretion that I think I can allow myself a little 
indiscretion for a change. I believe I could find 


248 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

out about that motor — I mean whether it’s really 
that that’s in the way. Do you authorise me to 
do so? I should not bring you in at all, of course; 
it would be a quite independent inquiry.” 

Vincent turned impulsively from the window. 
“Ah, Minna, I always said you were a brick I 

If you could manage to do that ” 

But Minna, with a short laugh, put her hand be- 
hind her back, almost as though she were afraid 
of its being saluted for the second time to-day. 


CHAPTER V 


THE ^'boudoir herald^' 

The line to Albert-gate presented to-day no- dif- 
ficulties, which was fortunate, for Irma, flying from 
Fortague Street as though from a deadly peril, had 
no attention for the details of her surroundings. 
Her body might be in Hyde Park; her spirit was 
still in the little box-like drawing-room between 
whose four walls Mr. Denholm had just asked her 
to become his wife, and been told with a vehemence 
into which surprise had startled her that this could 
never be. 

For, despite the episode of Tuesday, the surprise 
had been great. The tete-a-tete in the fog was a 
thing by itself which could have no bearing upon 
the morrow — so it had seemed to her. It had been 
too like the fairy-tale prince arriving just in time 
to rescue the princess from the dragon or the ogre 
to justify any expectation of a sequel in real life. 
And, lo! to-day the prince had in sober earnest, and 
in broad daylight, offered her his person and his 
name. She would not have been a woman if her 
heart had not bounded with the pride of the 


249 


250 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

thought, though at the same moment that same 
heart contracted with the pain of renunciation. That 
the man whom she had seen a few weeks back with 
the reflected glory of a great and significant* cere- 
mony upon his person, while she stood humbly 
among the crowd, should not think himself above 
stooping towards her and drawing her from her 
lowly place to his side, filled her with a great aston- 
ishment. That moment at the church door had 
been for her, too, as well as for Vincent, loaded 
with revelations, though of a different category. 
Until then his professional life had scarcely ex- 
isted for her, diplomats being to her an unknown 
quantity which she had never had occasion nor need 
to investigate. That they represented countries, 
and were supposed to keep other countries in good 
humour, she knew in a general sort of way, but 
nothing more. Into the financial circle in which 
her parents moved not even an attache had ever 
strayed; Vienna society being almost as strictly 
classified as Chinese castes. The sight at the Ora- 
tory door had opened new horizons. Upon her as 
much as upon any other atom of the gaping crowd, 
the footmen and the state-coaches, the uniforms and 
the decorations had done their work. And when 
in the midst of the pageant and part of it she had 
recognised her quondam Hungarian pupil, a sharp 
mixture of two feelings had been the result; joy at 
seeing the man whom she had been thinking of as 
translated to distant climes still present in her own 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 251 

world, and pain — none the less real for being un- 
acknowledged — at realising the gulf which sepa- 
rated them. 

That he did not look upon the gulf as unbridger 
able had been proved to-day. But she knew better; 
knew enough, at any rate, to realise that this was 
not the only possible sort of marriage for her — 
the one in which her father could find a place. In 
so worldly an existence as Mr. Denholm’s must 
necessarily be — and apparently so public a one^ — 
that quiet nook in which the stricken man could end 
his days, unmolested and untroubled, could ever be 
forthcoming. Hence her instant and instinctive re- 
jection of Denholm’s suit, without so much as a halt 
for the consultation of her own feelings. At best 
it could be but an empty ceremony, seeing that they 
must not be allowed to fall into the balance. That 
would be a disloyalty to the task undertaken, and 
she could be anything except disloyal. 

With tight looking lips and head held even 
higher than its wont, Irma went swiftly on her way. 
If to-day she had at last sounded the depth of her 
own sacrifice and understood what it was that she 
had undertaken when she had chained her life to 
that of the defrauder, there was nothing in her face 
to show it. If anything, it had but tightened her 
grasp upon her resolution. 

With the thought of her father came the thought 
of the necessary concealment. To keep him in igno^ 
ranee of the latest episode was of primary impor- 


252 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

tance. She had seen him so deeply disturbed about 
that other offer of marriage that she shrank from 
repeating the experience; the more so as she was 
not certain of being able to reassure him here in the 
way she had been able to reassure him there. He 
might catch a glimpse of a sacrifice — though even 
to herself she had not explicitly admitted that the 
sacrifice was there — and that must not be. In order 
that it should not be it would be necessary to show 
a particularly bright face this evening, and to talk 
of as many unessential subjects as possible, for fear 
of essential ones coming up. 

With this idea in her mind Irma stopped in 
BromptonRoadjin order to spend three-pence upon 
chrysanthemums and another three-pence on one of 
those society papers in whose columns she occasion- 
ally recreated herself by following the pranks of the 
upper ten thousand. The lightly dished scraps of 
elegant gossip served by the “Boudoir Herald’’ 
were a distinct aid to conversation. 

The room was still deserted when she reached 
it ; and having flung a few drops of brightness upon 
its dinginess, by means of the chrysanthemums, 
Irma settled down to the “Boudoir Herald” with a 
dogged attention which strove to exclude all private 
and personal thoughts, but did not entirely succeed. 
Despite her strained will, a face seen recently came 
between her and the printed paragraphs — a man’s 
face with astonishment and pain written upon its 
clear-cut features, and with proud reproach looking 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 253 

at her from out of the luminous brown eyes. With 
such words as: “Is this your final decision?” or: 
“Will you not give me a little hope, if nothing 
else?” ringing in her ears, it was difficult to feel 
vividly interested in the fact that Lord and Lady 
Branchmaine had been entertaining the hugest 
shooting-party ever known at Branchmaine Castle, 
or that the prowess of a certain young lady not 
explicitly named, but referred to playfully — and for 
the initiated of course transparently — as “the 
golden-locked Diana” had apparently brought to 
her feet one of the biggest partis of the season. 
“Run her fox to earth, and secured a brush of solid 
gold,” was the way the “Boudoir Herald” put it. 
Neither the pretty chats upon the latest craze in 
table-decoration, nor the more serious articles — as 
became a serious subject — upon winter fashions 
were able to hold Irma’s interest to-day. But pres- 
ently, right through the mists of her inattention, a 
heading caught her eye : 

“The latest diplomatic on ditJ^ 

Instantly the wandering thoughts concentrated. 
Lately, and more especially since the sight at the 
Oratory gates, anything in which the words “diplo- 
matic” or “diplomacy” figured was sure of her at- 
tention. Already she had become an expert in pick- 
ing them out of newspaper columns. It was a way 
of completing the impression then gained, of en- 
lightening her own profound ignorance on the sub- 
ject of what was apparently so dazzling a career. 


254 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Within the last weeks she had learnt somediing 
about the presenting of diplomatic “notes,” and a 
good deal about the brilliancy of ambassadorial en- 
tertainments. It was unavoidable that she should 
now pounce upon the only paragraph which prom- 
ised interest. 

It proved more interesting even than she had 
surmised. Here the “Boudoir Herald” undertook, 
with many winks and shrugs — to be read between 
the lines — to confide to its readers the real reason 
of an abrupt change recently made by a certain 
Continental country at an important diplomatic post 
— for the “Herald” was broadly international in its 
collection of gossip. The noble Prince, pictur- 
esquely described as the representative of “the home 
of the torreador and the mantilla,” who had lately 
been brusquely removed from a capital which, even 
to Irma’s uninstructed eyes, clearly stood for 
Vienna, was not suffering because of any blunder of 
his own — or rather yes, because of the chief blunder 
of his life, which he had committed when he se- 
lected his second wife. There was not a word to be 
said against the lady’s conduct, nor her education, 
but a good deal against her origin, at least by such 
connoisseurs of pedigrees as are Austrian aristo- 
crats. Other lesser Courts had accepted her with- 
out inquiry — swallowing her with their eyes shut, 
so to say, but not so Vienna. It was bad enough 
that the Sehora should have been of bourgeois ori- 
gin, as the herd of old Grdfinnen infallibly nosed 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 255 

out, but when It transpired that she had actually 
trodden the boards, a miniature revolution broke 
out in every Vienna drawing-room. That they, the 
wearers of seven and of nine-pointed crowns and 
possessors of family trees growing Into the sky, 
should be expected to pay the highest marks of 
honour’ to’ a person once having been the servant of 
the public, cela depassait les homes. It was all very 
well to talk of the impersonality of an ambassador; 
against the theory there was nothing to be said, but 
In practice — -no, In practice, it did not work — at 
any rate not in Vienna. The social situation, 
strained for some time past, had reached Its climax 
at a Court reception, during which the unlucky 
Senora had upset a glass of water over the velvet 
robes of a particularly blue-blooded old Grdfin, and 
having excused herself on the score of “nervous- 
ness,” the old Grdfin, losing her temper, had 
snapped back: “You, nervous? Why, I thought 
you were used to public appearances I” 

By the time the bon-mot had flown round Vienna 
society it was thought time to withdraw the Prince 
from his post; and no other suitable one being free 
at the moment, it seemed likely that the eminent 
diplomat would for the present be placed d dispo- 
sition. 

Down to the last word of the paragraph Irma 
read attentively, and, having finished it, let the pa- 
per sink onto her lap while she reflected. There 
was some food for thought, and also something a 


256 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

little perplexing about the state of affairs here re- 
vealed. Further enlightenment would be welcome. 
Perhaps her father could give it. She began to 
await his return with a new impatience. 

When at last he arrived, dead tired, from the 
distant shipping office at which he still worked as 
correspondent, there were first his comforts to be 
seen to, also there were certain roundabout ways to 
be followed in order to lead up “naturally” to the 
subject aimed at. For on no account must he guess 
at a personal interest in the matter. That would 
betray everything. Fortunately, despite her igno- 
rance of diplomacy as a career, she was a woman, 
which means that she required none of that profes- 
sional training by which alone the male diplomat 
can be turned out. 

Having, therefore, with admirable liveliness, 
served to her father the crumbs of society gossip, 
and regardless of the fact that his interest in these 
topics was nil (what could that matter so long as 
he could be persuaded that hers was huge?), and 
having posted him up in all the new crazes, she pro- 
ceeded to draw the circle close by exclaiming: — 

“Oh, here’s an article about Vienna, papa — that 
may interest you. It doesn’t mention names, but 
it calls it ‘the gay city of the blue river,’ which, 
of course, means that. It’s about the Spanish Am- 
bassador there, and some story about his wife ; but 
I don’t quite believe what they say. Listen !” 

; Harding sat passive and unprotesting. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 257 

“Is it not ridiculous of them?’’ asked Irma at 
the end ; it is true, of course. What can it mat- 
ter about her want of family, and even about her 
having acted, so long as she behaves herself ? Do 
you think it possible?” 

“Is what possible?” inquired Harding, rousing 
himself to the attention that appeared to be ex- 
pected. 

“That Austrians could be as unreasonable as this. 
It strikes me as an aspersion cast on my nation, 
don’t you see!” she finished with an explanatory 
laugh. 

“There’s no pride like the Austrian pride of 
birth.” 

“Yes, but if she’s good enough to be the wife of 
an Ambassador, then surely she’s good enough to be 
their guest. You see it says expressly that there 
was nothing against her character.” 

“I believe an Austrian Countess could more 
easily forgive a hole in a character than a hole in 
a pedigree,” smiled Harding. 

“Could such a thing happen anywhere but in 
Austria?” 

“Not in the same way, I fancy. But, whatever 
his past, that man would probably find himself ham- 
pered. You see, a diplomat’s wife is too much a 
part of his functions to be ignored. If he is wise 
he will select her almost as carefully as the Sover- 
eign or the heir to the throne chooses his consort. 
All the social part of the business falls to her. 


258 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

That’s why they nearly all marry titles. To have 
a lot of tame Counts or Princes running in and out 
of the house, with the freedom of blood-relations, 
cannot fail to give an eclat to the position.” 

“Then the Spaniard cannot have been very wise.” 

“No, he cannot. In that fierce light which beats 
on Embassies almost as broadly as on thrones I 
don’t see how he could hope to keep the stage epi- 
sode dark. And he must have known the danger to 
his career, since an ambassador cannot afford to 
have his wife insulted, his honour being, so to say, 
identical with that of the country he represents.” 

“He must have been very fond of her,” mused 
Irma. 

“Yes, that must have been it.” 

Through the dullness of Harding’s pale blue 
eyes a spark of interest kindled into sight. 

“When you are fond of a woman nothing mat- 
ters, of course.” 

His thin lips pressed each other almost out of 
sight. 

“Too great a love — just so; and now he is paying 
for it. Poor fellow !” 

He smiled pityingly, like a man who knows all 
about it. 

“Will he not get another post?” 

“It does not seem convenient to give him another 
at present, as they say. And even when a vacancy 
comes there will have to be much weighing and 
considering of whether his wife will do for the post 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 259 

as well as he. Oh ! he tied a dead weight to his 
foot when he married her, and no mistake.” 

In the silence which fell father and daughter 
were each so busy with a private train of thought 
as almost to forget the other’s presence. Irma fol- 
lowed her own reflections with elbows on knees and 
hot cheeks pressed between her two hands, for the 
agitation of the afternoon was not yet spent. She 
had wanted to be enlightened — so she told herself, 
with frowning gaze fixed on the fire — and now she 
was enlightened — beyond her desires. Those few 
words of her father’s had told her more about the 
life of a diplomat, and consequently of Vincent 
Denholm, than she had ever guessed at before. 
Such careers as his could be either made or marred 
by a marriage, it would seem. And yet he had 
proposed to marry her. That meant that he loved 
her to that particular point where “nothing mat- 
tered,” as her father put it. The recognition would 
have been a joy had it not brought with it another 
— that of the impossibility of ever becoming his 
wife. By the dull stab at her heart she knew that 
until this moment hope had not been quite dead; 
that despite that instinctive “No” spoken in Miss 
Bennett’s drawing-room, a hidden thought of pos- 
sible reconsideration of the decision had been sneak- 
ing about somewhere out of sight. But this was 
the coup de grace. It was now only that the abso- 
lute impossibility stood unveiled and naked before 
her — now only that the gulf revealed itself as for- 


26 o pome and circumstance 


ever unbridgeable. For this was no question of a 
merely obscure origin, nor of the exercise of a pro- 
fession honourable though discredited. It was a 
dishonoured name which she would be bringing to 
her husband ; a name which could be cast up in his 
teeth any day, just as the stage had been cast up In 
those of the Spanish ambassador. A diplomat could 
not afford to have his wife Insulted; which meant, 
of course, that he could not afford to have for his 
father-in-law a defrauding bank-director marked 
down by the International police. 

No, no^ — this was the end of everything, of 
course. That Spanish actress had apparently been 
able to make up her mind to spoil the career of the 
man she loved, but Irma Harding would never do 
that. 

Of the man she loved? Even so. For the mo- 
ment In which she recognised him as irretrievably 
lost to her was also the one in which she looked 
her own secret in the face. 


CHAPTER yi 


“IGEN OR NEM?” 

“6, Fortague Street, 

“Friday Evening. 

“Dear Vincent: 

“IVe been as good as my word. The desired 
light upon the situation has been turned on. You 
should have seen me tackle her, which I did straight 
out, with what any one of your professional train- 
ing would probably call ‘brutal directness’ ; but you 
know how stupid I am about ‘disguising’ my 
thoughts. I therefore inquired point-blank whether 
I might count on the continuance of the lessons or 
would have to look out for another German teacher. 
Then, when she opened her eyes rather wide, I ex- 
plained that reports had reached me — conveyed, of 
course, by the usual ‘little bird’ (which in this case 
couldn’t well be anything higher than a London 
sparrow) — touching a certain motor-car which had 
been noticed in Filbert Gardens — since, even in 
London, things are occasionallynoticed — and of the 
conclusions drawn therefrom, which had led me to 
suppose that Fraulein Hartmann would soon be 

261 


262 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


more pleasantly occupied than in driving German 
grammar into such thick skulls as mine. Upon 
which she laughed and confessed. One-half of our 
surmises — that of the motor-maker’s infatuation — 
is correct, but the other half is nowhere. It seems 
that she has said ‘No’ twice already — having given 
him two Korhe (baskets), as she puts it — which 
is the German rather practical way of paraphrasing 
a refusal. That time you met the motor at the cor- 
ner was the occasion of the handing over of the 
second of these ‘baskets.’ She tells me that he 
threatens to propose once a month, for the future, 
and that she has got an unlimited supply of ‘bas- 
kets’ ready for him — and this in spite of having 
actually been promised an exclusively ‘motor’ honey- 
moon. She is getting quite learned, it seems, about 
‘worm drives’ and ‘bevel gear.’ She was both 
amused and amusing about it all. To hear her 
laugh was to feel assured that, whatever else blocks 
your path, it is not the motor. I suspect it’s no 
more than some exaggerated idea about her father, 
and not wanting either to abandon him or burden 
her husband with him. She seems to me the sort of 
girl who could rise to quixotism. But I don’t see 
why the obstacle need be insurmountable. The old 
gentleman is a gentleman ; and I imagine that if the 
presence of the father is all the price you have to 
pay for the possession of the daughter, that price 
will be cheerfully paid. 

“Conclusion : Go in and win I — always supposing 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 263 

you to be in the same mind you were in on Friday. 
IVe cleared away the shadows, I think; it’s for you 
to steer by the light obtained. 

“Your affecte. cousin, 

“Minna Bennett. 

“P. S. — Do you by any chance require the loan 
of my drawing-room? Next German lesson takes 
place on Tuesday. Avis au lecteurj* 

“Three whole and entire days till Tuesday 1 ” was 
the resume Vincent made of the letter as, with eyes 
that were already shining, he laid it down. 

And forthwith he began to fume at so extraor- 
dinary an arrangement as a day having the ridicu- 
lous number of twenty-four hours, and each hour 
the absurd contingent of sixty whole minutes. For, 
viewed from the depths of Friday night, Tuesday, 
of course, looked centuries away. Three entire 
days before he could — do what? Propose over 
again to a girl who had already presented him with 
one of those “baskets” of which she evidently pos- 
sessed an inexhaustible provision. 

A rejected suitor pleading for the favour with- 
held had always appeared to him an ignominious 
spectacle; he was learning now the radical differ- 
ence between an objective and a subjective point of 
view. 

As matters turned out he had not to wait till 


264 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Tuesday, cruel Fate being kind enough to shorten 
the suspense. 

It was on the very next morning that, having 
business in the city, the first sight which met his 
eyes as he stepped out of his banker’s door into 
the teeth of a peculiarly bitter east wind was the 
cadaverous face of Herr Hartmann, journeying 
eastwards in a closely packed ’bus. This presuma- 
bly meant his absence from Filbert Gardens for at 
least half a day, and might possibly mean the 
daughter’s solitary presence there. Instantly the 
vision of the shabby dwelling-room stood before 
his mind’s eye with sudden, compelling force. A 
single figure shone out of its mean frame. From 
that distant point to the spot upon which he stood 
invisible fibres seemed to be stretching, strong as 
cords, adhesive as tentacles, all drawing him in one 
direction. Remembering the three nights which 
separated him from Tuesday, and reflecting upon 
the quality of the sleep enjoyed during the one just 
passed, Vincent came to a sudden resolution. Might 
not that vision of the face in the ’bus have been the 
finger of Providence, and could this not be the mo- 
ment which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ? 

Within a minute he sat in a hansom, his face 
turned westwards, his heart beating as hard as 
though he had been sixteen instead of twenty-six. 

Good luck favours not only the brave, but also 
the resolute — up to a certain point. It was only 
when Pattie, with eyes so widely torn open as to ap- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 265 

pear of almost normal size, said: “Miss ’Artmann? 
Yes, sir, she’s in her room” — that it occurred to 
Vincent how very improbable it had been that he 
should find her at home at this hour. 

“Will you ask her whether she will receive me?” 
said Vincent, pulling out a card ; but already Pattie, 
whose fault was not slowness, had flung wide the 
door alongside. 

“A gentleman for you, miss,” she triumphantly 
proclaimed, and promptly shut them in together. 

Barely across the threshold, Vincent stood still, 
in momentary diffidence, while from a chair beside 
the fire Irma rose precipitately, a half-darned sock 
between her hands, while scissors and cotton 
dropped unheeded to the ground. 

“Mr. Denholm — oh, have you brought a mes- 
sage from Miss Bennett? Or perhaps it is my father 
you want to see? I am so sorry — he is out.” 

She spoke in patent agitation, with quick, vivid 
flushes passing across her startled face. 

“I know that he is out. That is why I came. I 
will go away at once if you order me; but I should 
like to put a question first. It is a question which 
I would have put the other day if you had given 
me time.” 

Earnestly and steadily he looked at her across 
the room. 

“What question?” she faintly asked 

“When you said ‘No’ to me on Tuesday last, 
was it what people call an ‘insurmountable aver- 


266 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


sion’ to my person which prompted you ? That is 
what I should like to know?” 

There was an attempt at lightness in the tone — 
not over-successful. Nor did the answer come at 
once. Mechanically she turned back to the sock 
she was darning — perhaps for the sake of having 
something over which to bend her face — and made 
a stitch blindly; but even across the room — for 
they stood with its whole width between them — 
Vincent could see how her fingers were shaking. 

“Irma!” he said very low, in a tone that was 
loaded with both tenderness and reproach. 

Then she looked up; and with the meeting of 
their eyes her defences fell. In three strides he had 
crossed the floor and taken her hands — sock and 
all. There was one long trembling sigh as she let 
herself go, half falling against him, with passion 
in her eyes, and on her cheeks the mingled red of 
passion and of that shame with which even the 
purest love is shadowed. For one long, perfect 
moment their lips met in one of those kisses in 
which two souls seem to mingle as palpably as two 
bodies touch. 

“I have not lived till now!” was the thought 
flooding the man’s mind. “Ah, to die after this 1” 
hummed through the woman’s veins as much as 
through her head. 

“My love 1” he breathed into the small ear dis- 
covered somehow within reach of his lips. 

“My level” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 2671 

Two words only, and yet they had broken the 
spell. Within his arms she stiffened suddenly, bend- 
ing back her head in order to fix him with scared 
eyes. 

“Lam not your love — no, no — not that I I was 
forgetting.” 

“My love — and soon to be my wife,” he mur- 
mured, half drunk still from an excess of joy. “You 
will be my wife, Irma?” 

Almost violently she tore herself free, pushing 
him from her with her two hands. 

“Never I I can never be your wife !” 

She was retreating before him; the ecstasy of 
a moment ago blotted out on her face by a kind of 
horror. 

Abruptly sobered, Vincent gazed in alarm, star- 
tled by the vehemence of both words and action. 

“But — just now?” 

“Just now I was mad. Be generous, and forget I” 

“Forget!” He laughed harshly. “It is so like- 
ly I will. It is so much my habit to propose to 
young ladies that such a trifling episode will easily 
be lost count of.” 

“Oh, I know; but in time — in time,” moaned 
Irma. “It was only because I was not prepared. 
Oh, why did you take me by surprise I” 

“I thank my stars that I did, else I might not 
have found out your secret. For you love me, 
Irma ; deny it if you dare !” 

Her lips parted, and closed again. The denial 


268 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


would not cross them. Though she had wanted 
it, she could not give the lie to her own heart — 
could not take back the confession of that mad kiss 
which still throbbed in her veins. For so black a 
perjury she was both too honest and too proud. 

“Granted that I could forget, would you forget, 
Irma?” 

His piercing glance seemed to cut the answer 
out of her heart as with a sharp knife. Whether 
she would or not, she must meet it; and suddenly 
the needed strength came. 

“No, I would not forget. You would not believe 
me if I said I would. The other day I was not 
sure of what I felt; but to-day I know.” 

She looked at him steadily now; self-mastery 
regained by a violent effort of will. 

“And, knowing it, you still give me the same 
answer as then?” 

“The same. It can make no difference. Don’t 
ask me to explain — I cannot. But I cannot marry 
you. I can never marry anybody.” 

“You need not explain. I understand. You are 
thinking of your father, of course ; you do not want 
to leave him. But neither need you ; I have thought 
of that, too. With all my heart I am ready to be 
his son.” 

She looked at him gratefully — far more grate- 
fully than she had looked at Mr. Potts on a some- 
what similar occasion. 

“How good you are I But ” 


POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 269 

“I am not good; I love you — that Is all. Irma, 
don’t keep me in pain. Let me know my fate 
quickly. Yes or No? I gen or Nem ? — which is it 
to be? The two syllables, please I not the onel 
Don’t you remember how I said that Hungarians 
must be fonder of saying No than Yes, because they 
took longer to assent than to deny? Take as long 
as you like, but say the right word at last. I gen, 
Irma — Is It not I gen?'' 

But there was no responding smile upon her 
face, though he was beside her once more and had 
retaken hungry possession of her hands. 

“It Is your father. Is it not? You do not want 
to leave him? Have confidence in me, my love I 
Tell me all!” 

She drew away her hands, quite gently this time. 
Her quiet, and the heavy sadness In her eyes, 
frightened him far more than her vehemence of a 
minute ago had frightened him. 

“It is not what you think. The matter Is not 
so simple. Even if my father were to die to-day, 
it could make no diflerence. The Impossibility 
would remain. I can never be your wife.” 

For a moment longer he studied her face, then 
turned, with a puzzled frown, to vaguely peram- 
bulate the room. Something about her manner 
bore in upon him a sense of hopelessness. He had 
an idea that her heart was breaking, together with 
the conviction that nothing would break her will. 

“An impossibility? There is no such word in 


\2^o POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

my dictionary. An impossibility simply means an 
obstacle, and obstacles are made to be removed, or 
knocked aside, or trampled down. But in order 
to trample effectively one would need to know its 
nature. If you could tell me more 

“No, no — I can tell you nothing.’* 

“Then I will find it out for myself.” 

“No, no !” she said again, with a note of terror 
in her voice. “Do not do that ! It would change 
nothing — only make it worse.” 

“Is it another man?” he asked, well-nigh rough- 
ly, watching her with jealous suspicion. 

“No.” 

“Will you swear to me that no other man has 
anything to do with this impediment?” 

“Yes; I swear.” 

He looked into the transparently truthful eyes, 
and was convinced, but all the more deeply puz- 
zled. 

Having taken a few more aimless steps about 
the room — for neither of them had thought of sit- 
ting down during the brief and agitated interview 
— Vincent halted at last beside the mantelpiece, 
his eye caught by a somewhat unusual object which, 
with that aggressive distinctness of certain details 
in moments of mental excitement, had jumped into 
his field of vision. 

“What is that?” he asked in accents of the pro- 
foundest astonishment, pointing to a dingy little 
wooden figure tricked out in skirts which presum- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 271 

ably had once been pink, and, to judge from the 
convulsive clasp of her match-wood arms, striving 
to swarm up the stem of a brass candlestick — May- 
pole fashion. 

Irma looked across the room, and half smiled. 

“That is the Past,” she said, with a bitter twitch 
at the corners of her fair lips. 

“Ah ! and what you call the ‘impossibility’ dates 
from the past, too, I presume?” 

“Yes.” 

“And she — this creature — ^knows all about it, 
no doubt?” 

“She was a witness,” said Irma, falling into the 
lighter tone — though it was but a false lightness — 
which the talk seemed to be taking. “Oh, yes, of 
course, she knows all about it.” 

“Will you do me a favour, Fraulein Hartmann? 
Some ladies are merciful enough to bestow a flower 
or a ribbon upon a rejected suitor. I crave the pos- 
session of this doll.” 

Irma smiled wearily, thankful for that “Frau- 
lein Hartmann,” and yet illogically wounded by it. 

“Oh, take her, of course. But she is very 
grimy.” 

“Which is enough to tell me that, though she 
may be the past, she is not your past,” said Vin- 
cent, with another straight look into her eyes, while 
he deliberately pocketed Vindobona. 

“She isn’t a talking doll, I suppose, more’s the 


272 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

pity; for if she was, I might yet get the truth out of 
her regarding that obstacle.” 

“It is I who want a favour now, Mr. Denholm.” 
“Well?” 

“Will you give me your word not to try and 
find out anything about the obstacle? It would 
make me much happier.” 

Her eyes pleaded almost humbly, yet very ob- 
viously in vain. 

“I am sorry not to be in the position of bestow- 
ing happiness upon you, Fraulein Hartmann; but, 
having an objection to breaking my word, I cer- 
tainly do not mean to give it on this occasion.” 

The touch of grimness in the tone blended per- 
fectly with the new ceremoniousness of manner; 
and it was ceremoniously, too, that presently he 
bowed himself from the room. A most conven- 
tional ending to what had begun — to say the least 
of it — unconventionally. 

Alone again, Irma fell into a chair with a feel- 
ing of exhaustion, dominated by an exultation that 
would have liked best to cry fiercely aloud. What 
mattered her prostration, since the victory was 
gained? Had she not conquered her own love and 
his? Had she not saved his career for him, in the 
teeth of his own opposition, against his own will? 
The first rejection had been made, in the main, for 
her father’s sake ; the second one was for his own. 
And he did not guess it ; he must not guess it ; for 
such knowledge might undo her work. After to- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 27J 

day she could not help speculating upon the extent 
of the sacrifices he might be ready to make. All 
the more needful that she should be strong, be firm 
for them both ; all the more needful to keep him 
In his Ignorance. And then there was the opposite 
contingency likewise to be considered: the contin- 
gency of his weighing the sacrifice required, and 
deciding against it; of his examining the objection 
and accepting it as final — a thought from which her 
woman’s pride shrank fearfully. Of the two pos- 
sibilities It would be hard to say which would be 
worse : that of seeing him prefer his career to her, 
or that of seeing him prefer her to his career, and 
of knowing herself the wrecker of his life. It was 
an impasse, whichever way she turned. “No, no; 
he must never know,” she said, with her face be- 
tween her hands. The mere thought of being 
branded In his eyes, of standing before him as the 
avowed daughter of a defrauder, was insupport- 
able. 

Let the tears flow now — they could no longer 
weaken her resolve. And yet how nearly she had 
failed ! Thinking of that mad moment into which 
that drop of sun-steeped Hungarian blood flow- 
ing in her veins had betrayed her, her cheeks 
burned, but also her heart exulted. With a life- 
time of renunciation before her, could she regret 
entirely that one moment of possession? What- 
ever happened now, however dark the years to 


274 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

come, when she heard happy people talking of 
their happiness, she would at least know what they 
meant. She, too, would have been in Arcadia, if 
only between the space of two breaths. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE VERDICT 

“Can I have a few words with you anywhere in 
private?’* 

Irma looked about her rather hopelessly in the 
passage to which she had followed the small, neat 
doctor, with the compact, iron-grey head. The 
character of the passage, on to which gaped both 
the lower and the upper staircases, did not seem 
to guarantee the privacy desired. 

It was Mrs. Martin who unexpectedly played 
the Dens ex machina — the upper portion of her 
person surging suddenly into sight from the nether 
regions. 

“This way, miss, please. You are kindly wel- 
come to my sitting-room, if it be so as ’ow the med- 
ical gentleman don’t hobject to stepping down- 
wards.” 

Since the first appearance of the motor-car Mrs. 
Martin’s affability towards her foreign lodgers had 
been steadily on the increase. 

The medical gentleman not objecting, the de- 
scent was made to the apartment which Mrs. Mar- 
275 


276 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

tin called her sitting-room, but whose original des- 
tination had probably been that of a storeroom or 
china closet — a narrow strip of a space, whose 
brick floor was Insufflclently clad with rag carpets, 
whose whitewashed walls bloomed with Christmas 
supplements, and where the gas had to be turned 
on even for midsummer visitors, in place of the 
window which did not exist. Here, within walls 
which had never known a glimpse of daylight — 
let alone a ray of sunshine — ^wlth the smell of the 
dinner of all the lodgers in her nostrils, Irma was 
to listen to words whose terror seemed to be punc- 
tuated by the hiss of the pots In the adjoining 
kitchen. 

The very first glance she met across the small 
round table, which the family Bible and the family 
album divided equally between them, gave her a 
start: it looked so alarmingly sympathetic, which, 
of course, meant that there was something to sym- 
pathise about. 

. “There Is nobody else — no older relative, I 
mean — with whom I could have this talk?” 

“Nobody,” said Irma, with sinking heart. 
“Please tell me quickly: is he very iU? I thought 
it was only Influenza?” 

The neat, little, Iron-grey doctor coughed neatly 
behind his well-cared-for hand. 

“It is Influenza; but It Is not only Influenza. The 
attack is not by any means a virulent one. It Is not 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 277 

the influenza that is the point ; it is the state of the 
heart.” 

“Is there anything wrong with his heart?” asked 
Irma, precipitately, losing colour a little. 

“When was your father last examined medi- 
cally?” asked the doctor, with a doctor’s practised 
evasion. 

“Examined? Oh, I don’t know; not for years, 
certainly. I don’t remember his ever being exam- 
ined at all.” 

“I see,” said Dr. Hockins, with gently closed 
eyes. He made a habit of this when listening to a 
report, as though willing to save the victim from 
the embarrassment of his rather penetrating gaze 
— something after the fashion of certain priests 
when receiving a confession, and in order to spare 
the blushes of the penitent. 

“And during the past year did you not observe 
that his health was — ah — failing?” 

He opened his eyes and closed them again, after 
one Inquisitorial glance. 

Irma’s heart contracted sharply. 

“Of course I did. I did everything I could to 
persuade him to see a doctor, but he would not. He 
is — there are reasons which make him extremely 
shy of seeing anybody.” 

“I see. That is a pity. A few months ago there 
might have been a chance of checking the evil. It 
has probably existed for some years, but I date the 
chief ravages from within the last year. You will 


278 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

probably know whether any particular cause of 
worry has occurred within this space. This form 
of affection is usually due to mental causes.” 

This time he shut his eyes very tight while await- 
ing the answer. 

“Oh, he has had causes,” said Irma, with a quick 
heave of her bosom, a bitter curve of her lip. Then, 
as though in dread of possible self-betrayal : 

“But what is the evil? Is there really any 
danger?” 

A very kind glance met her from the keen eyes 
opposite. 

“My dear young lady, it would not be right of 
me to conceal from you that this is not the way the 
question stands. Rather I should put it: Is there 
any hope?” 

Speechlessly Irma sank against the hard chair- 
back, gazing wide-eyed at the mouthpiece of fate. 

In the short pause that followed something clat- 
tered to the ground in the kitchen alongside, and 
Mrs. Martin began to scold in her habitual scream, 
which, at a recollection of the visitors close by, sank 
abruptly to a spluttering whisper. 

“Your father is not an old man; his age would 
be nothing if his constitution had not been under- 
mined — probably by adverse circumstances. The 
influenza in itself would also be nothing, and may 
even yet prove a benefit by having served to dis- 
close a state of affairs which should have been 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 279 

looked to long ago. My fear is that it has dis- 
closed this too late.’’ 

“Oh, doctor I” said Irma, just audibly. “What 
am I to do?” 

“Have courage, in the first place — for the sake 
of the patient, since it is upon your shoulders alone 
that the burden seems to lie. As for the rest — ^my 
dear young lady — it is difficult for me to say; but 
if there are any — ah — dispositions to be made, it 
might be as well not to lose time.” 

“Then you really think he is going to die?” 

“My respect for the resources of nature is far 
too great to let me ‘really think’ anything. It re- 
solves itself into the question of whether the heart 
is or is not up to the work which still stands before 
it. It is a question to which I must reserve my 
answer; but I am afraid — I am very much afraid 
that it will be wisest for you to be prepared for the 
worst.” 

Irma leaned forward, and right across the Bible 
and the album stretched her clasped hands towards 
the doctor. 

“But you will do everything — everything to save 
him, will you not?” 

Dr. Hockins smiled, a little pityingly, for so 
much naivete. As if the pleadings of a daughter 
had anything to do with the conscientious exercise 
of a profession ! 

“I will do my duty, my dear young lady. It will 
be your part carefully to follow the directions 


28 o pomp and circumstance 


given. Our first object must be to feed the engine 
which keeps the machine a-going — in other words, 
to strengthen the heart.’’ 

Technical details filled the last few minutes of 
the doctor’s visit. Irma drank them in thirstily, 
and with a pang saw the house-door close upon his 
dapper person; for now she was alone with the 
coming shadow ; the wrestle with the King of Ter- 
rors, of whose approach the little doctor had served 
as herald. 

For one minute she took refuge in her own small 
bedroom, and there struggled for composure; for 
the blow just received had come upon her like a 
thunderclap, as it is apt to come upon the young 
and healthy who have chanced never to see death, 
and to whom its very existence seems so distant as 
to be scarcely a reality. She had been anxious ere 
this, but not seriously alarmed, used as she was to 
her father’s chronic feebleness. 

That day of bitter east wind on which Vincent 
had caught sight of Harding in the City ’bus had 
been the last on which he had gone to his work. 
That same evening he had come home in a state of 
exhaustion quite distinct from the daily fatigue, and 
next morning, after a restless night, had made a 
vain attempt at rising, peremptorily cut short by 
Irma. Both to her and to him it had seemed at 
first nothing more than a bad cold, for whose com- 
bating the various hot infusions recommended by 
Mrs. Martin would probably prove sufficient; 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 281 


though Pattie, personally, put more confidence in 
the virtue of the medals which, just outside the 
door, she conscientiously dipped into every cup of 
tisane sent up by the landlady; besides smuggling 
the saintly effigies — of which she fortunately pos- 
sessed an ample store — into the most unlikely 
places. It was not until St. Benedict had been 
discovered at the bottom of a cup of camomile tea, 
and St. Michael had come to light from between 
the sheet and the mattress, where he had been af- 
fording the patient anything but peaceful nights — 
that Irma became aware of these practices, and, in 
spite of Pattie’s tearful assurance that the first of 
these holy men, in particular, was “a ghrand person 
for colds,” sternly abolished them. When, after 
four days of assiduous dosing, her father had 
fainted right away in her arms while she was set- 
tling his pillows, Irma threw the tisanes overboard 
as well, and, sweeping aside the sick man’s objec- 
tions, insisted upon having a doctor. And now 
from this same doctor’s lips she had learnt the 
truth; for although he had not denied her hope, 
she had scarcely any remaining. It was so much 
more likely that he had said less than more of his 
actual thought. 

And all this time the sick man lay alongside wait- 
ing for his verdict. Yes, she must be strong, and 
without delay. With the thought, her eyes went 
to the silver crucifix above the bed — no longer the 
£mpty sign it had been in days of prosperity. If 


282 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


she knew now where strength lay she owed the 
discovery to adversity — and to Pattie. 

As she stepped into the shadows that were redo- 
lent with the breath of the eucalyptus kettle steam- 
ing away upon its hob, Irma was attempting to 
conjure to her lips one of those mechanical smiles 
which so many daughters and mothers and wives 
have worn on similar occasions — a smile whose in- 
tent is to deceive, but which is so fatally liable to 
degenerate into a grimace. It was her way of arm- 
ing herself against the look of anxious expectation 
which she expected. But as she rounded the screen, 
placed so as to intercept a possible draught from 
the door, it was another sort of look that met her. 
Already at the door Harding’s impatient “Is that 
you, Irma?” had touched her with a passing sur- 
prise ; and now her astonishment deepened ; for the 
sick man, raised upon his elbow, with flushed face 
and eyes brighter than she had seen them for long, 
was gazing eagerly towards his daughter. 

“Oh, papa — lie down; you will tire yourself.” 

“No, no — never mind that. Why have you 
kept me waiting so long? What have you and the 
doctor been talking about? Don’t you think the 
subject might have a certain interest for me, too? 
I could see by his questions that it’s more than a 
cold. How much longer does he give me? Out 
with it, Irma.” 

It might have been the surprise of the unex- 
pected tone that overthrew Irma’s hastily run-up 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 283 

defences. Before she was aware of what had hap- 
pened she had sat down beside the bed and burst 
into tears. 

Immediately a gaunt hand stole over hers, in 
which her face was hidden. 

“Don’t cry, Irma!” came the hoarse, feeble 
voice. 

“You’re a good girl, and it isn’t your fault. Can 
you actually imagine that you are bringing me a 
bad piece of news? Why, it’s the best possible 
news that could reach me. For shame, Irma! 
From your bright little head I should have looked 
for more perception. What did he say? what did 
he say exactly? Is the verdict clean-cut? Did he 
put the black cap on to pronounce it?” 

He still stroked her fingers soothingly, coaxing 
her with the pleading of his voice, into which there 
came a note of warning as he added : 

“Mind, I have a right to the truth!” 

And presently he drew it from her — in part. 
The existence of danger was admitted, the neces- 
sity of being prepared; and what she did not tell 
him he knew already — through her tears. With 
a strange smile on his thin lips he listened, lying 
back now upon the pillow, his eyes exploring the 
ceiling with a gaze as far-reaching as though no 
ceiling were there. 

When she was silent he drew one of the long, 
laboured breaths which it tortured her to hear, and 
again turned his face towards her. 


284 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“You will wire to her, Irma, will you not?” he 
said more quietly, and still with those unnaturally 
brilliant eyes. “When she knows it is the end, per- 
haps — perhaps she will come.” 

“Papa I” said Irma, below her breath. 

“You do not think so? Perhaps I have no right 
to ask her. But at the end, you know, Irma, at the 
end ; when she knows she is going to be quit of me 
for ever. After all, she did love me once. It 
would be the last favour. And, oh, to look into 
her eyes again — to touch her hand but in passing I 
Perhaps even to hear her forgive me! It would 
be easy to die then.” 

So much enchantment lay upon the white- 
bearded face, so deep a craving spoke out of the 
hoarse eagerness of the voice, that Irma stared, as 
though at a revelation. And with the astonish- 
ment mingled a pang. So, after all, for all the 
sacrifices wrought, for all the affection expended, 
she did not really count in his life. If she stood 
second in his thoughts, it was only with an immense 
interval between her and their first object. She 
knew now that he had never for a moment ceased 
to hanker secretly after his idol. The very fact of 
her having been the cause of his moral ruin seemed 
only to have riveted the chains which bound him 
to her. For the daughter who had saved him he 
might feel deep esteem and profound gratitude, 
and affection, too, of that obvious, unavoidable sort 
which fathers feel towards daughters who are also 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 285 

“good girls”; but all the passion in his soul be- 
longed to the wife who had ruined and spurned 
him. Upon the thought of her he hung as does 
the beaten dog upon the eye of his master. It was 
almost as though the very burden of gratitude op- 
pressed him too much to let paternal love expand, 
for to all but the most ignoble or the noblest of 
natures gratitude is ever the heaviest of burdens. 
We feel more at ease with those who owe us sonje- 
thing than those to whom we owe something — 
which is why we generally prefer the society of our 
debtors to that of our creditors. 

“Yes, it had better be a wire,” Harding said, as 
huskily and as eagerly as before. “Did he — did 
the doctor say anything about a hurry?” 

Then, as Irma shook her head passionately: 

“Still, it had better be a wire. You will write 
it at once, Irma, won’t you ? Have you any forms ? 
And put it plainly, mind. For if you don’t put it 
plainly enough she may not think it necessary to 
come.” 

As she moved reluctantly towards the table his 
eyes followed her. 

“How fortunate I am not in New York, now! 
You never guesseti what it was that put me against 
the idea, did you?” 

The pale-blue eyes took on a passing sharpness. 
He tried to laugh, but had perforce to cough in- 
stead. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE SUMMONS 

“A TELEGRAM for you, Isabella,” said a large, 
dark woman of masculine aspect, entering the 
room in which Mrs. Harding, in a peignoir, was 
occupied in laboriously piling up the masses of her 
black hair before a looking-glass. Until the ruin 
she had always had a maid to do it for her ; and the 
daily struggle with her abundant tresses marked 
a daily accentuation of the bitterness of her loss. 
But the toilet-table itself bore almost the same face 
as in old days, for silver-backed brushes remained, 
of course, a necessity of life, and the number of 
powder-puffs and crystal-boxed cosmetics clearly 
showed that, even in exile, the beauty remained 
conscious of her duties towards herself. 

She turned now quickly to her sister, a little of 
the brilliant colour fading out of her cheek. 

“From London?” 

“Yes.” 

“Give it me.” 

She tore the paper open with fingers visibly un- 
steady; but Amelia, watching, saw the terror in 

286 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 287 

her eyes fade, replaced by something more like 
perplexity. 

“What is it? They haven’t caught him, have 
they?” 

“No, thank heavens, they haven’t caught him, 
but he is ill. Irma seems to think he is dying. She 
asks me to come.” 

There was a short silence, filled by thoughts 
which it is not likely that either of the sisters 
would have consented to put into words. Mrs. 
Harding, the crushed paper sunk to her lap, sat 
looking past the mirror and out towards the flat 
landscape, bare almost as a table, which was all 
the window framed, and with only the huge, slant- 
ing arm of a draw-well cutting the horizon. 

“What will you do?” asked the elder sister, 
after that pause. 

“I don’t know. I am considering.” 

“Would not a meeting — such a meeting,, too — 
be horribly painful, for him as well as for you? 
You have your health to consider, Isabella, mind.” 

The large brunette spoke with something of ma- 
ternal authority, and with a glance which, coming 
from under those thick black brows, surprised by 
its tenderness. The spoilt child of erstwhile had 
evidently not exhausted all the favours of fortune. 

“Horribly painful — I know. But, after all, it 
isn’t quite easy to say No at such a moment. And 
it is probably the last time.” 

“Just think of the distance! — and at this sea- 


288 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 


son I Really, Isabella, for a man who has ruined 
you ’’ 

‘T am thinking of it. But it is not the man alone 
— there is Irma.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“If I don’t go, and if — anything happens, Irma 
remains lost to me. She will not come back to me 
— I have read that out of her letters — certainly 
not If I refuse to fulfil her father’s request. But 
if I go she may be a little touched, and I may be 
able to persuade her to come back with me. And 
I want to get Irma back. She has mad ideas, but 
she has a face that would make any man forgive 
them. If there Is any hope for us In the future It 
lies with Irma; certainly not with Gabrielle. The 
poor child takes after her father. You see what 
I mean, Amelia?” 

“Yes, I see; and I see also that I shall have to 
let you go. Will you take Gabrielle with you ? She 
won’t be much of a help.” 

“Not in travelling; but possibly In persuading 
her sister. Yes, I shall take her.” 

“Do you want any money, Isabella?” 

“No, thank you. Do you suppose I would let 
you pay my journey? That would be bitterer far 
than eating your bread.” 

In answer, the big, masculine woman stooped 
to kiss her beautiful sister, and Immediately hur- 
ried off to her well-stocked larder. In order to 
decide which of the fat geese and prime capons 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 289 

which hung there almost as thickly as in a poul- 
terer’s shop would be best adapted for provision- 
ing the travellers. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Harding was already packing, 
feebly seconded by Gabrielle — in tears. The im- 
pending ordeal, notwithstanding the bustle of this 
sudden journey, had something in its favour. To 
one used to the movement of town life, existence 
in a Hungarian puszta — be it ever so plentifully 
fed — could not but flavour of the monotony of the 
landscape. A break, even a disagreeable one, was 
not absolutely unwelcome. It was a piece of good 
luck, certainly, to have a sister so hospitable, and 
married to the owner of so many miles of maize- 
fields and of rich cattle-pasture that generosity 
scarcely ranked as a virtue; for where such an 
abundance of fatted calves and pigs and chickens 
were a-going, the presence of two people, more or 
less, could really make no difference. Also, in spite 
of an occasional reference, made for decorum’s 
sake, to the flavour of the bread eaten, that bread 
scarcely tasted bitter at all in Isabella’s mouth. But 
at hard cash her particular sort of pride drew the 
line. With the consciousness of this reserve, and 
with the chorus of indignant pity ever sounding 
in her ear, she had found existence endurable dur- 
ing the last year — endurable, but not exciting. A 
rush across Europe would at least have the merit 
of variety. 


290 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

In a closely packed carriage of the Dover line, the 
lamp overhead, which had just been lit, fell, among 
other things, upon the face of a beautiful, weary- 
looking woman approaching middle age, and upon 
that of her immediate neighbour, a fair-skinned, 
disconsolate-looking girl’s face, with the stains of 
fresh tears upon it. The woman’s face was not 
only weary, but likewise ill-humoured; for the jour- 
ney had been long and hurried, and — contrary to 
former experience — taken second-class. Every 
journey of the past had been enjoyed among the 
orthodox red-velvet cushions, whose colour alone 
seems a badge of fortune’s favours — its fatigues 
eased by all the resources of modern travel. But 
this time first-class tickets had been out of the ques- 
tion, and a sleeping-car not to be thought of. Small 
wonder that the erstwhile enjoyer of fortune’s fa- 
vours should feel aggrieved and out of place — for 
the rush across Europe had, by this time, lost all 
its prospective attractions — and almost unavoid- 
able that her thoughts of the man to whom she 
owed the discomfort should not have perceptibly 
softened. 

“Is this London?” asked Gabrielle, as dimly 
seen roads, heaving like rigid billows on either side 
of the raised causeway, began to press close, picked 
out by points of light. At moments the sea of ma- 
sonry would open, to disclose a gas-lit street, in 
which bird’s-eye glimpses of men and vehicles, of 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 291 

shop-windows and flaring advertisements could be 
caught. 

“I suppose it is London. You had better collect 
the wraps instead of staring.” 

Gabrielle sighed tremulously. 

“I wonder if papa” — she began in a whisper. 

“Collect the wraps, Gabrielle.” 

At Victoria another bad moment with the lug- 
gage, not calculated to improve Mrs. Harding’s 
temper. It had always been her maid who looked 
after such trifles as this ; whereas here, apparently, 
she was expected not only to give her personal at- 
tention to the matter, but, in accordance to the bar- 
barous English fashion, to stand in a jostling crowd 
and point out her box to a bungling porter. 

Deeply exhausted, she leaned back at last in the 
four-wheeler that was taking them to Filbert Gar- 
dens. As to what rnight possibly be awaiting her 
there she was too genuinely tired to dwell upon it, 
though, beside her, Gabrielle trembled with the 
terror of the unknown. 

With the stopping of the cab she opened her 
eyes. The driver was climbing down from the box 
with the rheumatic slowness peculiar to the four- 
wheeler cabman. Before he had reached the 
ground the door had been opened with a prompti- 
tude which plainly spoke of a look-out held. 

There was a cry from Gabrielle: “Irma I It is 
Irma herself!” 

In a moment she had become nimble ; and by the 


292 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

time Mrs. Harding reached the doorstep the sisters 
were withdrawing from their first embrace. 

“Well?” asked Mrs. Harding, a little breath- 
less. 

Impetuously, with a momentary blotting out of 
the past, Irma’s arms were flung around her moth- 
er’s neck. 

“Oh, mamma — thank heavens — he is better! 
The doctor thinks the danger is past — for the pres- 
ent. He is really better, and seeing you will make 
him quite well. Oh, thank you for coming!” 

“Better?” said Mrs. Harding, and, after that 
one word, was silent, perhaps aware of a discord 
in its tone. 

“You will come in at once, will you not? He is 
waiting.” 

“But our things, Irma ! You will let me dismiss 
the cabman first, I suppose. Do we lodge here?” 

“No — there is no room. I have taken a room 
for you at Number forty-two; a private hotel; only 
a few doors off. Pattie, tell him where to take the 
boxes. And now, mamma, this way.” 

“I should liked to have washed my hands first. 
You forget how far we have travelled.” 

•“No, I don’t, but the suspense is bad for papa; 
I am sure it is. Why, we had to give him morphia 
— this last night — in order to keep him quiet. Do 
you think it matters to him whether your hands 
are washed or not? This way, mamma, please.” 

Softly she opened the door alongside, and, fol- 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 293 

lowed by her mother — too tired to cope with such 
impetuosity as this — stepped into its shaded light. 

“Papa,” she said, stopping before the sheltering 
screen, as though to spare him the witness even of 
her eyes at this supreme moment, looked to with 
so much bliss and so much agony — “mamma has 
come. Here she is.” 

Then, stepping back, she left the passage free, 
and taking Gabrielle by the hand, hurried her into 
her own room alongside, leaving husband and wife 
face to face and alone. 

What words were spoken during the conjugal 
tHe-a-t^e it is not for an outsider to guess. Mean- 
while, between the sisters other words, less poign- 
ant, but perhaps as significant, were passing. 

“Oh, Irma — after all ! I was beginning to think 
that we should never meet again I Have you had a 
very bad time of it? You have grown so thin I” 

“Tow haven’t grown thin; why, you have almost 
grown fat;” laughed Irma, with her arm around 
her sister, while they cowered together upon her 
narrow bed, the one chair in the room being of for- 
bidding appearance. To feel Gabrielle’s cheek 
against her own gave her a thrill of half-forgotten 
emotion. The voice of a common blood was call- 
ing louder than she had expected it to call. 

“Oh, not fat, I hope!” said Gabrielle, uneasily. 
“It’s so ugly to be fat. But, really, at Serelmes it 
is rather difficult to avoid it. Aunt Amelia is al- 
ways pressing one to eat ; and the butter is so fresh 


294 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

and so good and the chickens so beautifully 
stuffed I” 

Irma laughed again; she could laugh now, at 
last, after two days of mental anguish. 

“Poor Gabrielle 1 What an awful predicament 
to be in I I have been spared that, at least. I don’t 
remember anybody pressing me to eat within the 
last year, except Pattie; and, considering that the 
things to eat were usually cold mutton or dry toast, 
the invitation was not very difficult to resist. One 
of your stuffed chickens now and then wouldn’t 
have been a bit amiss.” 

Gabrielle’s eyes filled with the ready tears. 

“Oh, Irma, how dreadful! To think that you 
have actually been hungry! Oh, if those chickens 
were mine to send ! But you must never be hungry 
again. You will come back with us this time, will 
you not, Irma?” 

Instantly Irma’s arms relaxed in their clasp. 

“Don’t begin that way, Gabrielle! You know 
quite well that I cannot leave papa ; less than ever 
now, with his health so precarious.” 

“But if — if anything were to happen to papa? 
You would come with us then?” 

“Nothing is going to happen,” said Irma, fierce- 
ly. “Have I not told you that the danger is past? 
He is going to get quite well again.” 

“Well, then, if he is quite well again, you could 
leave him, could you not?” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 295 

Putting her hands upon her sister’s shoulders, 
Irma looked her in the face. 

“It is mamma, is it not, who is making you say 
this?” 

Gabrielle coloured helplessly. 

“Oh, I would have said it at any rate. You 
know how I wanted you to stay with us on — on 
that terrible day in Vienna.” 

“But it was mamma who told you to persuade 
me now?” 

“She did say that you might listen to me more 
than to her ; and that it is her one wish to take you 
back with her.” 

“Ah ! now I understand why she came.” 

Abruptly Irma’s face had hardened. 

“I didn’t expect she would come when I sent 
that telegram; but now I understand. It is quite 
simple.” 

“But surely you cannot blame her, Irma?” 

“I do not blame her for anything she has done 
to me. It is not me she has harmed.” 

“And you still think that— that it — the whole 
misfortune, I mean, is more her fault than papa’s ?” 
asked Gabrielle, with humble uncertainty. 

A year of the double chorus — of pity of her one 
parent and condemnation of the other — had 
brought Gabrielle to the point of wanting to con- 
sider her father alone guilty and her mother wholly 
innocent, as being the theory which most conven- 
iently squared with such enjoyment of life as still 


296 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

remained open to her. But, owing partly to a 
trace of real affection for the culprit, her object 
had not been entirely attained. For Gabrielle was 
one of those unfortunate people cursed with a sense 
of justice uncoupled with the courage of living up 
to their convictions,'' and quite devoid of that con- 
venient coarseness of moral fibre which made her 
mother invulnerable. Hence the standing torment 
of self-reproach. In spite of much mental debate, 
she had not arrived either at quite condemning her 
father nor quite forgiving her mother for her con- 
duct in the crisis. 

Something of the chronic struggle was visible 
on her face just now, even to Irma’s eyes. 

“I have not changed my mind,” she said a little 
brusquely. “And to think of them at Serelmes 
sitting around the fire of a winter’s evening and all 
throwing stones at him makes my blood boil. Do 
you ever try to turn off the stones, Gabrielle?” 

Under her sister’s piercing glance Gabrielle hung 
her head. 

“How can I — against so many?” 

“I see. Poor papa !” 

Irma’s nostrils were quivering now, as she meas- 
ured the figure beside her with a glance “from which 
tenderness had been banished by a more dominant 
feeling. 

But in that moment the hand of the fair-haired 
little egotist stole Into her own. 

“Do you think it wrong of me to stay with 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 297 

mamma, Irma? Ought I to go away froiH, 
Serelmes?” 

As Irma looked into the pale-blue, pleading eyes 
her own softened. That moral intolerance lyhich 
was the defect of her qualities made it hard to be 
patient with a creature of so different a make. But 
for nursery memories it is probable that she would 
not have been patient. But, the nursery memories 
being there, she kissed her younger sister almost 
stormily, though with the conscious superiority of 
one who embraces a child. 

“Wrong? What an idea! It’s the most nat- 
ural place in the world for you to be at. Of course 
you must stay with mamma. But mind about the 
butter and the chickens, Gabrielle!” she added, 
with so affectionate a contempt that it was scarcely 
contempt. “It would be a pity to spoil your figure. 
Just now it is very becoming, but you ought not to 
get much plumper than you are.” 

Gabrielle, though visibly relieved, yet sighed 
under the stress of this new-born alarm. 

“Oh, yes, that is the danger. I know I was too 
thin before, but it would be worse to get too fat. 
Oh, I shouldn’t like to take after Aunt Amelia! 
Tt hasn’t really harmed me till now, has it, Irma?” 

Sfi * * * * * 

Later in the evening, while Gabrielle was sitting 
beside her father’s bed and Irma had accompanied 
her mother to No. 42, another short talk took 
place. 


298 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Mrs. Harding had come out from the interview 
with her husband rather pale and with something 
not easily analysable smouldering in her eyes. The 
moment that the door of the hotel bedroom was 
shut she turned upon her daughter. 

“Was that summons genuine?” she asked briefly 
and somewhat aggressively — “or was it a sham?” 

“What do you mean, mamma?” 

“I mean was he really so ill as the telegram said, 
or did you make it seem worse in order to force 
my hand?” 

“Mamma!” 

Irma’s eyes began to blaze. 

“I want to know the truth — that is all.” 

“The truth is — I will swear it, if you like — that 
Dr. Hockins told me three days ago that he had 
next to no hope of saving him; that he might die 
at any moment.” 

“Then what has produced the change?” 

“The hope of seeing you, I believe.” There was 
a quiver as of scorn in Irma’s voice as she said it. 
“He began to rally from the moment he knew that 
you were coming. It seemed to give him strength 
to fight.” 

“There doesn’t seem to be anything the matter 
with him just now except an influenza.” 

“There is much more the matter with him, 
really. His heart is all wrong; but this crisis is 
past, and he may live for years, the doctor says, 
with proper care.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 299 

Mrs. Harding sat down somewhat heavily, lean- 
ing her aching head against the chair-back. 

“I don’t feel just now as if I was going to live 
for years,” she said, with a half-laugh, which did 
not ring agreeably. “That journey has half-killed 
me, I can tell you. I shall go back, of course, as 
soon as I have rested. A case of influenza scarcely 
calls for three nurses, docs it?” 

“As you like, mamma,” said Irma, in a voice 
as hard and far more icy than her mother’s. Since 
the talk with Gabrielle the merit of the summons 
obeyed had lost all value in her eyes, and hotter 
than ever burned the old indignation. 


CHAPTER IX 


TWO SPHINXES 

“Men in great place are thrice servants — ser- 
vants of the Sovereign or State, servants of fame, 
and servants of business; so as they have no free- 
dom, neither In their persons, nor In their actions, 
nor In their times. It Is a strange desire to seek 
power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over 
others, and to lose power over a man’s self. The 
rising unto place Is laborious, and by pains men 
come to greater pains ; and It Is sometimes base and 
by Indignities men come to dignities. The stand- 
ing Is slippery ” 

With a jerk of Impatience Vincent closed the 
book. What an unspeakably priggish idea it had 
been to turn to Bacon’s essays as a means of filling 
up the quarter of an hour which — having dressed 
for dinner In Eaton Place — he found upon his 
hands I The result proved almost as Irritating as 
one of Minna’s lectures. Viewed as a distraction 
from pursuing thoughts, the evening paper would 
certainly do much better. 

To the evening paper, accordingly, he turned; 

300 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 301 

and presently — having taken in the telegrams and 
more or less assimilated the leader — fell upon a 
paragraph headed ‘‘An Austro-Italian Incident.” 
This “Incident” consisted of the arrestation by the 
Austrian authorities of one Giuseppe Fernaldo, an 
artist by profession, who, though a naturalised 
Austrian, continued to call himself Signor Fer- 
naldo, and had been further illustrating his undy- 
ing attachment to the country of his ancestors by 
selling to the Italian attache at Vienna the plans of 
various fortifications, drawn with admirable accu- 
racy during a would-be sketching tour in Dalmatia. 
The man who had sold the plans was good for six 
months’ imprisonment; the man who had bought 
them, at most for a reprimand from his own chief 
for not being judicious enough in the choice of in- 
struments. The dirty work had to be done, of 
course ; but how could one be so stupid as to select a 
bungler who lets himself be caught with the mud 
still fresh upon his hands ! 

Vincent tossed the paper aside — almost into the 
fire. The news of the day promised to be almost 
more irritating than that voice out of the past, and 
queerly illustrative of it, too. That attache was 
one of those, presumably, who “by indignities” 
would “come to dignities” — since, of course, he 
would take his lesson to heart. And this between 
allies, who lost no opportunity of embracing, pub- 
licly, upon as high a platform as possible! Nor 
would the purchaser of the plans require to miss a 


302 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

single Court ball on that account ; and probably not 
a single smile of the aged monarch whose subjects 
he had been bribing and whose hospitality he was 
enjoying. Ugh I It was just a little revolting at 
moments. 

“How Minna will be gloating over me if she 
sees that paragraph!” laughed Vincent, “on the 
wrong side of his mouth,” while a movement of 
generous disgust passed over him. Upon which 
he lit a cigar, and, giving up reading as a bad job, 
fell to his chronic occupation of these last days: 
that of thinking of Irma Harding, and brooding 
over the pretended obstacle which stood between 
them. 

“And you are supposed to know all about it!” 
he apostrophised Vindobona, whose grimy pink 
petticoats now graced his private mantelpiece, 
throning in the midst of pipes and cigar boxes, 
something like a London-grown rose with the soot 
sticking to its petals. “She expressly called you a 
witness.” 

The possession of the little wooden doll was the 
solitary satisfaction of the moment, the one slender 
thread between him and Irma. If nothing else, it 
was an* object which her fingers had touched fre- 
quently, most likely, and to which — to judge from 
that word about “the Past” — she attached some 
symbolical meaning. Yet, stare at Vindobona as 
inquiringly as he would — and that he should so 
stare was the best proof of the state of his intellect, 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 303 

and consequently of his affections — her sharp 
wooden features remained those of a sphinx. 

“Would an application to the father be any use, 
I wonder?” he was musing, when Into the midst 
of necessarily fruitless meditations there fell a 
bomb in the shape of another note from Minna. 

When he had read it he sat for some minutes 
with the sheet between his fingers, thinking so 
deeply as to have become motionless. 

For Minna’s note ran thus : — 

“Dear Vincent, 

“I have received a piece of news which I feel 
bound to pass on to you at once, not knowing in 
how far it may affect your resolutions. Fraulein 
Hartmann had missed two lessons already, on the 
ground of not being able to leave her father, who 
had what she took to be mere Influenza. To-day, 
however, she tells me, in a few hurried lines, that 
the doctor had discovered some affection of the 
heart — of old standing, apparently — and that mat- 
ters had looked so bad that she wired for her 
mother, who came two days ago, but is going to 
return to Austria almost immediately, the danger 
having meanwhile passed. 

“I thought you would like to know this. In fact, 
I feel that you have a right to do so. 

“Your affectionate cousin, 

“Minna Bennett. 


304 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“P. S. — Mrs. Hartmann seems to be lodging in 
a private hotel in the same street.” 

When Vincent had sat still for a little while his 
back straightened perceptibly, and he drew out his 
watch. 

“To-day always remains a safer investment than 
to-morrow,” he muttered. “A message to Eaton 
Place will get me off.” 

He was on his feet already, his resolve clear-cut. 
For this was an unlooked-for chance. Until now, 
while determined to hunt down the mysterious 
“obstacle,” he had not known in which direction to 
start. Was not this the Finger of Providence at 
its old work? It was to be expected that Irma’s 
mother should be fully informed; probably better 
informed than the father, who for the moment fell 
out of the calculation, since one cannot cross-ques- 
tion a man barely escaped from the jaws of death. 
Therefore, Irma’s mother — who herself was a lit- 
tle mysterious — must not be allowed to leave Lon- 
don without having been persuaded, or entrapped, 
or forced into an interview. Vincent was in no hu- 
mour to stick at trifles, as any of his relations could 
have seen by taking account of the set of his fea- 
tures. Mrs. Hartmann was not a wooden doll, 
and therefore could not possibly be as sphinx-like 
as that creature upon the mantelpiece. It was even 
possible that Mrs. Hartmann herself was the “ob- 
stacle.” In this case, too, the “witness of the eye” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 305 

would be the best means of illuminating the situa- 
tion. The thing was obvious; and, judging from 
Minna’s P. S., not to himself alone. 

Ten minutes later he was on his way to Filbert 
Gardens In a mood which had swept all squeamish 
considerations of appearances to one side, bent only 
on seizing the unhoped-for opportunity, by the 
hair of its head, if need be. 

Owing to the fact that Filbert Gardens possessed 
a single specimen of the commodity, the identifica- 
tion of the “Private Hotel” presented no difficul- 
ties. Vincent, indeed, would have cheerfully rung 
every bell In the square — excepting only that of 
No. 38, where he dared not present himself; but. 
In point of fact, he had only to ring at two. 

Mrs. Hartmann? Yes, the foreign lady lodged 
here, but she had stepped over to No. 38, just four 
doors off. If the gentleman 

But the gentleman cut the suggestion short by 
Inquiring when she might be expected to return. 

“She came In yesterday at ten,” explained the 
scraggy housemaid, who had opened the door. 
“But It’s likely she’ll come In sooner to-day, seein’ 
as ’ow she’s leavin’ to-morrer.” 

“To-morrow?” repeated Vincent, In a sort of 
panic. 

“Yes. For the Conternont.” 

The word was self-consciousness. It was not 
every day that Continental passengers passed that 
way. 


3o6 pomp and circumstance / 

“I prefer to wait for her here. You have som^ 
sort of sitting-room, I suppose?” ' 

“WeVe got a droring-room,” corrected the 
scraggy maiden, almost reproachfully, “with two 
sofas in it.” 

Just outside the door of the “droring-room,” 
Vincent drew out his card. 

“When Mrs. Hartmann comes in give her this 
card, and tell her that I wish to speak to her upon 
an urgent matter. She may be surprised, as she 
does not know my name, but I must see her. You 
understand ?” 

The fierceness of the whisper in which the last 
words were spoken was a good deal softened by 
the coin which glided into the scarlet hand, inter- 
cepted on its way to the door-handle. 

The scraggy housemaid looked at the coin and 
blushed. Coins of this colour were even rarer be- 
tween these walls than Continental travellers. 

“In course I understand, sir,” she assured him, 
with the respectful wink of a withered eyelid. 
“You’ll see her, sir — never you fear!” — and flung 
wide the door of the room with the two sofas, into 
which Vincent stalked, recklessly indifferent as to 
the possible conclusions touching his relations with 
Mrs. Hartmann which the half-sovereign might be 
calculated to suggest. 

Besides the two sofas — one of which was occu- 
pied by two women in earnest consultation over a 
parcel of patterns — the “droring-room” contained 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 307 

a dozen chairs, evidently not planned with a view 
to lengthened physical repose, and* three tables, 
upon which various magazines dating from not 
further than a year back invited to agreeable lei- 
sure. Upon one of the chairs Vincent sat down, 
and waited grimly, for close upon an hour, making 
no plans for the impending interview — that was 
best left to the spur of the moment, he considered 
— but chiefly conscious of how nearly he had missed 
this precious chance; and, alas, prosaically re- 
minded, by prosaic sensations, of the vulgar fact of 
not having dined. Occasionally the door would 
open to admit some person, usually of the gentler 
sex, who, by virtue of a cotton-lace collar, or a rib- 
bon-bow at the neck, evidently considered herself 
to have “dressed” for dinner — or else to let out 
a similar specimen of womanhood. Except the 
two women with the patterns, who were too deep 
in agonies of indecision to have any attention to 
spare, they one and all cast curious glances towards 
the young man in the immaculate evening suit, sit- 
ting solitary and rigid, like a soldier at his post; 
but to him their existence was evident only as an 
annoyance. Would the room be clear when Mrs. 
Hartmann came? To have to say in a whisper 
that which he had to say would not make matters 
easier. During that hour the guests in the two-sofa 
room shifted more than once, all except the choos- 
ers of patterns, who played the part of a social 
rockbed. Once or twice Vincent looked impatiently 


308 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

in their direction, for they appeared to be settled 
for the night. 

And, in fact, they were the only intruders re- 
maining when at last the door opened to admit a 
person of quite a different stamp from the wearers 
of the cotton-lace collars : a tall, dark-haired 
woman in a fur cloak and cap, holding a card in 
her hand, and looking about her inquiringly and 
seemingly in some agitation. At the first glance 
Vincent knew who she was. Yes, of course Irma 
would have a beautiful mother ; yes, this was Irma’s 
bearing, Irma’s beauty matured and somewhat 
coarsened — but not Irma’s eyes, he told himself, 
as, advancing to meet her, he saw the face close. 

“You wish to speak to me?” she asked coldly, 
but within her eyes an alarm which puzzled him. 

Vincent bowed. 

“I have an important communication to make to 
you. If you will come to the end of the room ” 

He glanced towards the women on the sofa, still, 
fortunately, engrossed. 

“About my husband?” asked Mrs. Harding, 
quickly. 

“No; about your daughter.” 

“Oh!” 

She took a rather deep breath, and the alarm 
left her eyes. Until this moment she had suspected 
a private detective, a very well-dressed one, to be 
sure, but she believed that to belong to the exigen- 
cies of the profession. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 309 

Without any further objection she sailed across 
the shabby carpet, towards the further end of the 
room, and sat down upon the second of the sofas 
with the air of a queen taking possession of a 
throne. 

“Well?” she said, turning to Vincent, while, in 
her attitude of expectancy, bewilderment still clear- 
ly had its part. 

Drawing one of the unreposeful chairs close to 
the sofa, Vincent sat down, and deliberately leaned 
towards her, at an angle which allowed of a lower- 
ing of the voice. 

“Mrs. Hartmann,” he said very plainly, though 
nearly in a whisper, “I do not want to keep you 
long, for I know you are on the eve of a journey. 
Therefore I will go straight to the point. I have 
taken a liberty ; but I think you will forgive me for 
it when you hear what I have to say. But first let 
me ask: have you, perhaps, heard my name from 
your daughter?” 

Mrs. Harding glanced at the card in her hand 
and shook her head. 

“No, Irma has not spoken of you.” 

“Well, then” — his heart sank a little at the dash- 
ing of what had been a thought of hope — “I must 
just speak of myself, and of what I have done. I 
have twice asked your daughter to marry me.” 

“To marry you?” 

The wonder in her tone suddenly turned to in- 
terest. Her great black eyes took rapid and closeii 


310 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

stock of the man before her, and the practised 
glance approved. 

“Yes, and she has twice refused me.” 

“I see. And you want me to intercede for you? 
But I am afraid I cannot boast of any influence 
upon my daughter,” said Mrs. Harding, with a 
bitter contraction of the lips. 

“No, it is not intercession I require; it is infor- 
mation. If intercession could have done it I should 
have gained the day, for I know that she loves 
me. 

Mrs. Harding’s brilliantly white teeth were dis- 
played in a smile that was a little pitying — the 
smile of one who knows, 

“That is what men like to think when they are 
refused. Are you sure your self-confidence is not 
deceiving you ? Excuse me, but you seem to have 
a fair portion of it.” 

“I have it from her own lips that she loves me.” 

“She says that she loves you, and yet she refuses 
to marry you? Does that sound credible?” 

“Not in the least; nor explicable either. She 
tells me that something stands between us — some 
impediment in the way — that she will never be able 
to marry. That is why I have insisted on speaking 
to you. You are her mother. It is not likely that 
you should be ignorant of the nature of this ob- 
stacle. I cannot doubt that you will want to secure 
her happiness ; and I think you may be able to tell 
me how best to attack this impediment — for I 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 31 1 

mean to attack it. I hope you will help me to gain 
her — if you judge me worthy of her,” he added, 
with the usual afterthought, and once more lower- 
ing his voice, which, unconsciously, had gone up by 
a tone. 

Mrs. Harding sat rigid, the rich red fading 
slowly out of her face. 

“Irma said that?” she asked, with lips that 
moved stiffly. 

“Yes. I thought at first that it was no more 
than a strong reluctance to leave her father; but 
she said to me plainly that even if her father were 
dead the impossibility would remain.” 

To himself, watching Mrs. Harding’s face and 
the convulsive clutch of her fingers upon the table 
edge, he said : “Whether she tells me or not, she 
knows.” And at this new evidence of the reality 
of the hindrance his heart grew heavy. 

“I am horribly indiscreet, I know,” said Vincent, 
in the forced whisper in which they were talking; 
“but please to remember that the happiness of my 
whole life — and I believe of hers, too — is in play.” 

Mrs. Harding spoke only after a pause. With 
eyes fixed upon the opposite wall, she had appeared 
to be inwardly debating. 

“Perhaps you are indiscreet; but, then, you are 
in love — very much in love, apparently,” and she 
sent him a glance of close inquiry. “I don’t mind 
your indiscretion, since it allows me to be indiscreet, 
too. I, too, have questions to ask before I answer 


312 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

yours. Whether Irma’s feelings are concerned I 
do not know ; her future certainly is ; and you must 
remember that I know no more than your name. 
How am I to be assured that you are in a position 
to secure to Irma a life of comfort and of the — the 
regard which she ought to enjoy?” 

The great black eyes became acutely expectant. 
Doubtless the cut of his evening coat — not to speak 
of his manners — was reassuring in the extreme, 
and yet left the field of conjectures inconveniently 
wide. 

Vincent sat up in his chair and almost laughed. 
Of course! How stupid of him! He ought to 
have thought of that before. That he should not 
have begun by reassuring the mother upon such 
vital points was only another symptom of the rav- 
aging effects of love upon his mental faculties. 

He explained briefly, and perhaps a trifle haugh- 
tily, while Mrs. Harding attentively listened, vis- 
ibly impressed by the mere words “Diplomatic 
Service,” though to her, as well as to Irma, the 
subject was a foreign one. 

“I am daily expecting my nomination to a secre- 
taryship at a foreign Embassy,” he finished, as 
modestly as he was able. 

“Ah ! and those sort of secretaries become Am- 
bassadors in time, don’t they?” 

“/ mean to become an Ambassador, at any rate.” 

“Ah !” she smiled approval on him. “But mean- 
while — ^you have something to live on, I suppose ?” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 313 

“Not as much as I should wish; but, besides my 
pay, which will soon be eight hundred a year, I 
have another eight hundred of my own.” 

Mrs. Harding fell again Into a train of reflec- 
tion, from which Vincent’s urgent voice aroused 
her. 

“Your questions are answered, Mrs. Hartmann; 
but you have not yet answered mine. You have not 
told me whether you know what the obstacle Is?” 

“Yes, I know!” she said abruptly, and so loud 
that the two women with the patterns, who, having 
at last made up their undecided minds, were leav- 
ing the room, looked round with a stare. 

“And can you remove It?” 

She rose Impetuously, as though to escape his 
persistent eyes. 

“No — I cannot remove It.” 

“It Is real, then?” 

“It Is only too real. I can do nothing, I fear. 
This I can tell you: I am not the obstacle!” She 
laughed harshly, her head thrown back, a glance 
of proud self-justification thrown at the man in 
whom she divined a possible accuser. (Is it not 
the wife who Is always suspected, before the hus- 
band?) “Oh, Irma, my poor Irma! What a sac- 
rifice of a life ! And to think of the folly which 
has caused It !” 

She stood before him with eyes blazing, and 
hands clenched by her side In the best tragedy- 
queen fashion. Probably she had said more than 


314 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

she meant to, being clearly in a rage. Turning, 
she took a few hasty steps in the room of which 
they were now the sole occupants. Vincent, who 
had risen when she did, gazed at her in a mixture 
of admiration and of unreasoned repulsion. It 
was when she met his look that the effort to recover 
herself became evident. 

“You will excuse the agitation of a mother who 
sees a daughter’s happiness hanging in the bal- 
ance,” she said, forcing a smile, though her bosom 
still heaved. “I sympathise with you, believe me ; 
but I cannot help you. I don’t know whether any- 
thing can help you and Irma — ^but I fear not.” 


CHAPTER X 


THE APPEAL 

It was a little before ten o’clock next morning 
when Mrs. Harding and Gabrielle, in full travel- 
ling attire, leaving the cab with the luggage at the 
door, entered Number thirty-eight. Their train 
left Victoria at eleven precisely, which allowed a 
small margin for the final leave-taking. 

Wrapped in an old dressing-gown, the convales- 
cent cowered over the fire which Irma had carefully 
mended, previous to putting on her hat; the im- 
provement in the patient making it possible for her 
to see the travellers off, and thus partly replace the 
maid whose services Mrs. Harding so sorely 
missed. 

When Gabrielle had been repeatedly folded in 
her father’s rather limp arms — her pocket-hand- 
kerchief being in full play the while — her mother 
took her by the shoulder, not over-gently. 

“There — that is enough, Gabrielle! You will 
be wanting some last words with your sister, no 
doubt. You had better go to her. There will be 
no time for talking at the station.” 

31S 


3i6 pomp and circumstance 

It was Mrs. Harding who shut the door behind 
Gabrielle, before returning to where her husband 
sat, following her movements in some astonish- 
ment; for during these last painful days — ^whlch 
both had judged too painful to prolong — the avoid- 
ance of tete-a-tetes had been her chief care. He 
awaited her now, silent and passive, with Inquiring 
eyes. There were signs of a new and acuter anger 
about her to which he had no clue. 

When she was close he took her hand — gloved 
already — and held It for a moment. 

“Thank you, Isabella,” he said slowly, in his 
enfeebled voice. In which the agitation of approach- 
ing separation was less evident than a great ex- 
haustion both of body and soul. 

“Thank you for coming. It must have been a 
great sacrifice. Be sure that I appreciate it.” 

She pulled her hand away, her black brows knlt- 
tlng. 

Again he looked at her with his forlornly ques- 
tioning eyes. 

“Isabella, must we part In anger? I have ceased 
hoping for your forgiveness, but Is it too much to 
ask for your toleration? You seemed able to bear 
the sight of me yesterday — or was that only be- 
cause I was on my back? — and there is no new 
cause that I know of ” 

“There is a new cause!” came over Mrs. Hard- 
ing’s quivering lips in a burst of exasperation. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 317 

under which her heart had been swelling for hours. 
“Oh, you don’t know what I learnt yesterday!” 

Under the vehemence of her tone he sank back 
in his chair, wide-eyed and cowering a little, as a 
man on whom many blows had fallen cowers be- 
fore the fresh one which he divines coming, with- 
out knowing from which side it threatens. 

“I cannot be long about it; there is no time. I 
had a visit from Mr. Denholm. I suppose you 
know who Mr. Denholm is?” 

“Denholm? Yes. That is the man that took 
Hungarian lessons from Irma.” 

“And also the man that wants to marry her. 
Do you happen to know that?” 

“To marry her? Are you sure? I had no idea. 
It was Mr. Potts who wanted ” 

“Another? I daresay; and another impossibil- 
ity, of course. The long and the short is that Mr. 
Denholm has twice proposed to Irma, and that she 
has twice refused him, while admitting that she 
loves him, but telling him that something stands 
between them — that she can never marry. He 
came to ask me whether I could throw any light 
on the matter. I declined, of course; how could 
I do otherwise? But don’t you see what this 
means? As long as Irma is tied to your fate, what 
can be her chances of happiness? I don’t know 
that, even separated from you, she can hope for 
much now in the way of a marriage, since the name 
remains ; but by your side she cannot be other than 


3i8 pomp and circumstance 

a social outcast. That is what I foresaw in Vienna 
when I wanted to keep her back — when I called 
upon you to go away alone — to disappear out of 
her life. And the world is so big nowadays, there 
are so many new countries to vanish into. It may 
not be too late yet; I do not know. I’m afraid 
matters are pretty hopeless, especially taking his 
position. I don’t know much about diplomats, but 
I fancy they have to choose their connexions care- 
fully. Still, there is no saying — if you were gone 
there might be found a way.” 

The haste with which perforce she spoke made 
the words more precipitate and the exposure 
plainer and consequently more brutal than had lain 
in her intention. Now she paused sharply for an 
answer ; but Harding sat still, his powers of speech 
and even of motion momentarily checked by aston- 
ishment; for the disclosure had about it the com- 
pleteness of a revelation. Perhaps because the plump 
figure of Mr. Potts had blocked the way to other 
suspicions he had never even glanced at this possi- 
bility. Now he was remembering various things — 
that return in the fog — those questions about diplo- 
mats — yes, the circumstantial evidence tallied. 
Probably the thing was true. 

“Edward — say something!” urged Isabella. 
And then, meeting that empty gaze, checked her 
own words under an inner movement which pos- 
sibly was akin to remorse, or rather to that awe 
with which tyrants are sometimes seized at a close 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 319 

sight of their victims. Sunk there in the chair, 
with his white face almost of the same tint as his 
white, disordered beard, with the deep, deep lines 
about the desolate eyes and the attenuated nose, he 
looked so defenceless and so broken that the ab- 
surd superfluity of striking a creature so stricken 
already came over her, with the nearest approach 
to shame of which she was capable. She had 
loathed the thought of him for close upon a year 
now ; and since last night she had been hating him 
afresh as the obstacle to Irma’s happiness — or, at 
any rate, to her future ; and yet, convinced though 
she was of the rightness of her cause, some vague 
need of self-justification stirred unexpectedly. 

“You had to know. How could I be silent when 
Irma is concerned?” she said, in a tone from which 
some of the harshness was gone — and sincerely, 
too ; for in this woman in whom the wife had been 
dead for so long the mother undeniably lived — 
chiefly for Irma, the inheritor of her own beauty, 
the embodiment of a possibly brighter future. 

“And even for yourself it would be better to go 
— to America, I suppose. It would be less painful 
for you than your present position. You would 
need to regain your strength, of course, first,” she 
added, with an effort at magnanimity. “But per- 
haps in spring — ^when the cold is past — I could give 
you the passage-money, if that is the difficulty. I 
shall be able to manage that. Don’t you see that 


320 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

it would be better for you, Edward? And safer, 
too.” 

The cloak of decency thrown over naked facts 
had been snatched at almost unconsciously. 

“Don’t you understand me, Edward?” 

“Yes, I understand you,” he said, with suddenly 
recovered quiet, and with a look which, her robust 
nerves notwithstanding, Isabella could not forget 
till the end of her life. 

“Mamma, It Is high time!” said Irma, opening 
the door. “You will only just catch the train, as it 
is. Papa, are you sure you have everything you 
want? I shall be back In two hours, at latest, and 
Pattle will answer the bell any minute.” 

A few minutes later Irma sat beside her mother 
in the cab, a heightened colour still burning In her 
cheeks, and stealing an occasional Inquiring side- 
glance at Mrs. Harding. Those few minutes with 
Gabrielle had likewise for her held a revelation. 
She had learnt from her sister the fact of last 
night’s visit, and even the name of the visitor, since 
Gabrielle had found the card on the dressing-table 
and been Inquisitive enough faithfully to preserve 
the Inscription In her memory. At the motive of 
the visit she could partly guess, but not at its re- 
sult. He had announced his intention of investi- 
gating what she called the “Impossibility” and 
what he called the “obstacle.” How much had he 
discovered ? A question to her mother might have 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 321 

settled the point, but against the idea of putting It 
her pride revolted. 

SK * sjs * ♦ 

Huddled together In the arm-chair, and not 
having yet stirred out of the attitude in which his 
wife had left him, Edward Harding sat and la- 
boriously reflected. The disclosure just heard had 
been bad, but the fashion of the disclosure had 
been worse. Now that the first astonishment at 
the news was past he was not thinking so much 
of the impediment to Irma’s marriage, he was 
thinking of the appeal made to him, and which the 
fact of this Impediment had provoked. 

Upon the feverish excitement which had pre- 
ceded the arrival of Isabella had followed a space 
of the blackest disappointment which had yet come 
to this life so full of disappointments. He had 
had the vision of his goddess, craved for, but he 
knew that It would be the last In his life. He him- 
self could not even wish for a repetition of It. 
These last days had been too cruel. Already In 
the supreme moment of meeting something had 
jarred within him. The surprise at his recovery 
had to his super-sensiblllty smacked too much of 
disappointment. Out of the stereotyped and con- 
ventional congratulations upon the fortunate turn 
of his illness he had heard the unspoken and prob- 
ably unacknowledged reproach for having recov- 
ered. And this time he read the symptoms as he 
had never read them before. From the vantage- 


322 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

ground of the edge of the grave on which he had 
so recently stood he had gained an insight, never 
his before — death being in truth the only true val- 
uer of life. The shadow of the tomb, barely with- 
drawn, had strangely widened his vision. At last 
he was beginning to judge his idol. Until now a 
wavering belief in her generosity had still per- 
sisted. Even the atrocious scene in his study at 
Vienna might, by stretching many points, be 
ascribed to the impulses of the moment — to over- 
strained nerves. There had been many months to 
ease the strain, to lessen the bitterness. Finding 
him on his sick-bed might awaken mercy. It was 
now only that hope had definitely died; now only 
that he knew himself spurned for ever. How much 
simpler, to be sure, if he had not recovered; sim- 
pler for himself and for others! For Irma, for 
instance, whose happiness might possibly have been 
thereby assured, but, above all, for Isabella, in 
whose side he would always be a thorn, who was 
so beautiful still, and, delivered of him, would 
doubtless find another and worthier husband. A 
sharp sting of jealousy touched him at the thought, 
of such jealousy as is felt at twenty, and rising tri- 
umphant above bodily weakness ; for the idol, even 
with its feet of clay revealed, still dazzled him 
with the beauty of its face. He could partially 
judge her, but he would never be able to resist her. 
It was his intellect which had freed itself, but 
neither his heart nor his senses. To her advantage 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 323 

He was ready to sacrifice himself, and by the sacri- 
fice might, perhaps, wipe out the moral debt in- 
curred. And Irma, too, poor Irma, she would be 
paid, at least, in part. For her, too, that which 
he thought of would be a deliverance, though she 
might not recognize it as such. Irma was different 
from Isabella — a true and tender woman. Was 
Isabella a woman at all? and not rather a beautiful 
monster ! Ah, but how beautiful a monster 1 

He closed his eyes the better to conjure up the 
vision of the face which had been his undoing. 
Even in this vital moment the ‘‘good girl” re- 
mained a bad second in his thoughts. Strict justice 
she should have from him, strict and full justice, 
but it was not her image around which his thoughts 
twined. 

Yes, he would disappear, it was the only thing 
to do, but not to America. From America a return 
was conceivable, and for him there must be no re- 
turn, since his place in the world was gone, and his 
occupation. What should the worshipper do be- 
fore an empty shrine ? The idol was broken, may 
be; it had shown itself to be a dead thing; but that 
simply meant that he could not go on living. 

Ah, if he had that revolver which Irma had 
taken from him once! What could have become 
of it? He had never seen it since. He suspected 
Irma of having dropped it overboard during the 
crossing from Hamburg. A revolver did the thing 
so quickly. But what chances had an invalid. 


324 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

watched over so assiduously, of procuring himself 
another ? There were other ways, of course. His 
eyes went vaguely round the room In a search 
which felt Itself hopeless, and presently fastened 
themselves on the array of medicine bottles on the 
table. The morphia I To be sure ! The sleeping 
draught prescribed by Dr. Hockins ! How had he 
not thought of that at once ? Why, that would do 
even better than the revolver, would make no mess, 
and quite a painless process, he believed. This 
way, too, nobody need ever know that It was not 
an accident. Ah, but supposing Irma had locked 
it away. 

Laboriously he rose to his feet and tottered over 
to the table, where a fit of coughing forced him to 
pause and to hold on to Its edge until quiet re- 
turned. Then, his eyes still full of a blinding mois- 
ture, he groped about with his trembling fingers 
among the bottles. Ah, here it was, mercifully. 
Irma’s suspicions must have gone to sleep, else it 
would not be here. Carefully and jealously he put 
the bottle aside and sat down to think. 

“Let me see, which will be the best way?” 

With his elbows on the table and his chin upon 
his clasped hands, whose wrists, painfully emaci- 
ated, protruded from the sleeves of the faded 
dressing-gown, he began to make his plan, his 
brain already working at high pressure. In a mo- 
ment his eyes, so empty a minute ago, had taken 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 325 

on that sharp, almost cunning, look of the criminal 
who meditates his crime. 

It would have to be done before Irma’s return, 
of course; else she might take away the bottle, as 
she had taken away the revolver. She might be 
back before twelve, and It was getting on to eleven 
now. And then there was another thing: Dr. 
Hockins, who might be expected to look In even 
earlier than that. His furrowed brow knit in In- 
tense reflection. 

Presently he stirred with the decision of a man 
who has found what he was looking for, and, 
reaching for the blotting-book, dipped a pen In Ink 
and began to write: two notes, of which one was 
addressed to Vincent Denholm at the Foreign 
Office, the other to Dr. Hockins; this latter but a 
few scrawled lines : 

“By your charity, and as you hope for mercy 
yourself, deal mercy unto me, and let me die In 
peace. It was the greatest mistake you made In 
your life when you got me over that attack. I am 
trying to remedy that mistake now. To my daugh- 
ter — and to others — It remains, of course, an over- 
dose, taken by mistake.” 

Owing to the debility of his fingers it took him 
rather long to write the two notes. Having closed 
both, and holding the one addressed to Denholm, 
he tottered back again to the fireplace. 


326 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

The promptitude with which Pattie answered 
the bell spoke of the stringency of Irma’s com- 
mands. 

“You will take this to the pillar-post at once, 
please,” he said, with unwonted imperiousness. 
“And when Miss Hartmann comes in you will tell 
her that I am lying down. I have had a bad fit of 
coughing and have taken my sleeping-draught. She 
knows that I slept little last night. I would rather 
not be disturbed. You understand?” 

“Yes, sir. A fit of corfin’? You’ll be wantin’ 
your lime-blossom tea, I’m thinkin’. Shall I fetch 
up a cup? I won’t put no medal in it — I promise 
you faithful. Miss ’Artmann ’as forbidden me that; 
but if you would let me ” 

“No, I want nothing. Only take the letter at 
once, do you hear ? At once !” 

The thought of bribing her to silence crossed his 
mind, but was rejected as superfluous and possibly 
dangerous. 

Pattie gone, he first placed the note for Dr. 
Hockins beside his bed — ready against a possible 
intrusion, despite the word passed to Pattie; then 
took up the selected bottle and eagerly scanned the 
superscription: “Ten drops in water at night.” 

“I suppose a tablespoonful will be enough? Is 
there a spoon? Yes.” 

He considered the advisability of locking the 
door; but here also decided in the negative. A 
locked door would awake suspicions, and might 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 327 

cause him to be disturbed — too soon. A look at 
his watch told him that it was close upon eleven, 
and by twelve Irma might be back. Clearly there 
was no time to lose — though he had no idea of 
how fast the drug might work. 

The taste was horribly bitter, taken thus without 
water, as he did in his haste; besides, might not 
water weaken the effect? With a little grimace 
of repulsion he wiped his mouth and his white 
beard, on to which a drop had fallen. Perhaps it 
would be wiser to wash the spoon? The use of a 
spoon might contradict the theory of the overdose. 
Going to the washing-table, he rinsed it out care- 
fully, and further went through the precaution of 
placing a tumbler with the remains of the diluted 
dose usually taken at night beside the bed. 

Then he returned to his chair, scarcely aware of 
any fatigue after these unwonted exertions ; for the 
nervous tension easily supplemented physical 
strength. And now he began to wait — somewhat 
disappointed at the absence of an immediate effect, 
and scarcely convinced of having taken any vital 
Step. But for the bitter taste still in his mouth he 
might have doubted the reality of his own action. 

Presently Pattie was heard returning. But her 
steps, instead of making straight for back regions, 
paused before the door. There was a knock. 

“What is it?’’ asked Harding, in a tone of sharp 
annoyance. 

It was a wire, which Pattie had met in the street. 


328 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

He opened it with a certain indifference; what had 
he to do with wires any longer? — but as he read 
his eyes brightened. The message was from Irma, 
and told him that, the eleven o’clock train having 
been missed, the travellers would take the next 
Continental express, at one-thirty. Therefore she 
could not be home till after two. 

‘‘It is well. Don’t come in again. I shall be 
lying down immediately.” 

“Yessir. And I thought you’d like to know that 
the letter just caught the eleven o’clock clearin’. 
They was just fillin’ the sacks as I came up.” 

“All right, all right I Now go !” 

He remained with a pleased smile on his face. 
More than three hours before Irma could be 
looked fori Surely the stars were fighting for 
him I 

But were they fighting for him? Why did he 
feel nothing yet? Would a second spoonful be 
necessary? At the thought he repeated the recent 
grimace. That taste was so horribly bitter. He 
would wait a little longer. And the fire was so 
pleasant. How agreeable this glow running over 
his skinl 

He rubbed his hands softly, a new feeling of 
buoyancy mounting within him. Not for many, 
many years, certainly not since his hair had begun 
to bleach, had he felt so curiously light-hearted as 
he was feeling just now. How well he had man- 
aged this! How simple it was, after all! Would 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 329 

Isabella shed one tear? After all, she had loved 
him once. That day, when she kissed him for the 
first time, her lips had glowed like coals. He could 
feel the glow now — all over him. And nothing 
became her like white — though she never wore it 
now. It made her almost too dazzling. There — 
leaning upon the velvet-covered edge of the box, 
with the electric light upon her black hair, and all 
the vast opera-house no more than a frame to her 
beauty. Plad any woman ever reigned as she 
reigned? But was she not leaning too far? Would 
she not fall? Were those the tiers of boxes begin- 
ning to revolve ? 

He carried his heavy hand to his head as though 
to stay the growing dizziness — ^yet even the slight 
act was a struggle. Oh, how good it would be to 
stretch oneself out, with a pillow beneath the head I 
And there was a bed somewhere, but so far off! 
His suddenly weary limbs, aching now like the 
limbs of a beaten man, yearned towards it, and yet 
could not decide themselves to move. 

“But I cannot die here — I should fall into the 
fire!’* shot through his mind in the lightning track 
of expiring thought amidst the closing darkness. 

With a final effort of will he dragged himself 
out of his chair, and, groping half-blindly forward, 
fell upon the bed with a deep and trembling sigh. 
And almost immediately the room slipped from 
his consciousness — and with it the world. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE PROMISE 

“One o^clock/’ noted Vincent, as he descended 
the staircase of the Foreign Office. “Shall I take 
the news straight to Eaton Place? It ought to 
come in well as a luncheon dish. Berlin, of all 
places in the world I Best comment on the opinion 
entertained up there of your humble servant. Not 
likely they would put an idiot to Berlin just now.” 

The thought was triumphant, but the eyes were 
not quite so triumphant as they would have been 
some months ago under this same contingency, for 
at that time the “good” appointment had appeared 
to be the one thing wanting to his happiness, while 
now another thing was wanting. Neither could 
he, after last night’s interview, feel that he was 
any nearer gaining it. Irma’s mother, though more 
animated, had scarcely been less sphinx-like than 
Vindobona herself ; and the one positive impression 
to be gained from her demeanour was that the 
obstacle did not exist in Irma’s imagination alone. 

Before he got to the foot of the staircase he had 
decided that the news of his appointment would 
330 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 331 

keep till evening. Somehow the prospect of Lady 
Aurelia’s toothless smile of delight was not con- 
genial just then. 

Before a table white with letters he stopped ab- 
stractedly, from force of habit. There was a post 
just in, and the harvest still untouched. 

“Vincent Denholm, Esq. — Vincent Denholm, 
Esq.” 

His practised eyes went to the right spot at once. 
Quite a little mail ; but nothing that promised inter- 
est. All tiresomely familiar handwritings — all ex- 
cept a cheap-looking envelope with a shaky super- 
scription which held no place in his memory. Stand- 
ing before the table, with his unlighted cigar be- 
tween his teeth, he carelessly opened the missive — 
which he strongly suspected of being a begging let- 
ter — and read as follows : 

“Dear Sir: 

“I have just learned that you love my daughter, 
and that she returns your affection, but refuses to 
marry you because of an impediment in the way; I 
feel it my duty to let you know that /.am the im- 
pediment. The matter is very simple. My name 
is not Hartmann, but Harding, and I am not Aus- 
trian, but English. I am that Edward Harding, 
the quondam director of the Austrian branch of 
the Anglo-Saxon Bank, whose name you may have 
seen in the papers about two months ago as that 
of a defrauder, signalled to the international police. 


332 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

The papers did me no wrong: 1 am ^ defrauder. 
If there be a God, he knows that when I touched 
the deposits in my hands I did so with the full con- 
fidence of being able to replace them ; but I cannot 
expect men to believe me. Yet I do not want you 
to think me quite base. I had no intention of sur- 
viving my disgrace. If I have done so it is Irma’s 
fault. It was she who took the revolver from my 
hand, who bore me away from the spot of exposure 
— and who, by living for me ever since, has morally 
forced me to live. Her mother did what she could 
to show her the folly of her resolution, but nothing 
could stop the sacrifice. By her mother’s side she 
could have lived at ease and unmolested, yet she 
chose to be the companion of the guilty wretch I 
am. 

“But it has been a useless sacrifice; a mere post- 
ponement of the only possible end. I cannot live 
knowing myself a dead-weight on my family. I 
am the impediment everywhere. But the impedi- 
ment will have been removed — so I hope — ^by the 
time this reaches you. I don’t know whether my 
death is really helping your cause, since In your 
career names have to be spotless; but I imagine 
that a dead criminal will be less In your way than 
a living one. 

“Besides, It is far easier to die than to live. If 
it were not for the thought of the wretches whom 
I have injured, perhaps ruined, I could almost die 
content. Had I a son he might have worked and 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 333 

cleared my name from reproach ; but a son has been 
denied me — perhaps mercifully, for who knows 
whether he, too, might not have turned against me? 
It is not certain that he would have had Irma’s 
golden heart. I leave the matter in your hands. 
You will know whether or not her happiness is a 
thing to be attained. If she questions you, you 
must remember that it was a mere mistake about 
the medicine. Edward Harding.’^ 

i 

With his cigar still between his teeth, Vincent 
read down to the last word of the supposed beg- 
ging letter. For a brief space his horrified eyes 
remained fastened to the quavering line in which 
the signature died out, while the fact revealed upon 
the cheap sheet of letter-paper took gradual posses- 
sion of his incredulous mind. After that pause >of 
astonishment, which seemed to himself quite a long 
interval, though comprising in reality but a few; 
seconds, his numbed mind felt itself suddenly 
whirled off in a very witches’ dance of fast and 
furious thought. Amazement, compassion, ad- 
miration, horror, all circled wildly about him — but 
chiefly horror. This letter, even at the highest 
computation, could not have been written more 
recently than two hours ago. And within those 
two hours — what? 

Making precipitately for the door, he signalled 
to a passing hansom. Out of the chaos of sensa- 


334 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

tions one urgent need stood out intelligibly that 
of staying the hand of the suicide. 

“Drive like the devil !” he called to the man, 
having given the address; and, scarcely seated, sat 
well forward, with the fare in his hand, as though 
to lose no second at the other end. 

But, though “Cabby” came up nobly to the ap- 
peal, the distance between Downing Street and Fil- 
bert Gardens is not to be traversed in mere seconds. 
During that headlong drive, more than once in 
danger of being interrupted by a grieved-looking 
policeman, Vincent’s wild thoughts, despite him- 
self, and almost unknown to himself, began auto- 
matically to range. To arrive in time was the one 
conception occupying the surface of his mind; but 
below this surface many other things moved and 
dawned; and in the background of his conscious- 
ness, piece by piece, something like a vision of the 
future emerged, tentatively as yet, and almost tim- 
idly, yet with a curious persistence. Even while 
muttering to himself, “Will I be in time?” and 
with his thoughts bent feverishly on Filbert Gar- 
dens, he caught glimpses of things which seemed 
to have nothing to do with the present emergency 
— of Bob Kendall’s weather-beaten face, among 
other things — and of horizons which certainly 
were not those of that desolate street. 

He had all but torn down the bell before Pattie, 
with streaming locks, and eyes swollen to a size 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 335 

whichlusually signified some more than normal dis- 
aster to Mrs. Martin’s crockery, opened the door. 

“Mr. Harding — no, I mean Hartmann?” asked 
Vincent, feeling every heart-beat as a separate stab. 

Pattle, who was clasping a hot-water bottle to 
her breast, set up a subdued howl. 

“Oh, pore gentleman! pore gentleman! You 
can’t see him, sir — he’s that ill! Taken too much 
of his medicine, the docthor says. And Miss ’Art- 
mann not come in yet ! It do be awful !” 

She was rocking her body from side to side, and 
with it the bottle, as though it had been# a sick 
baby. 

“Hurry up with that hot water!” came sharply 
from an open door close by; and Vincent; pushing 
past the girl, made his way into the sick-room, 
where Dr. Hockins, In shirt sleeves, was bending 
over a passive figure on the bed. 

“Is he alive?” asked Vincent, breathing as hard 
as though It was he who had done the running 
Instead of the cab-horse. 

The doctor glanced keenly at his disturbed face. 

“You know?” 

“I know. But of course It must be prevented. 
Can I be of any use?” 

“Yes, you can — ^by taking hold of that other arm 
and Imitating my movements exactly. Artificial 
breathing,” he briefly explained. “Natural breath 
far too superficial — shove that bottle against the 
feet” — ^this to Pattie — “and tell Mrs. Martin to 


336 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

get some black coffee ready — as strong as she can 
brew it.’’ 

At the clammy touch of the limp hand Vincent 
could not forbear a shudder. With his dressing- 
gown half stripped from him, Harding lay outside 
the blankets, his head tilted back upon the pillow, 
his sunken features of a bluish pallor — ^with a nar- 
row line of yellow-white visible between the half- 
closed lids, and a barely perceptible rising and fall- 
ing of the bare chest, veiled by the unkempt white 
beard. 

For several minutes the doctor and his impro- 
vised assistant manipulated in silence. Then first 
one, then the other, in close imitation, paused. 

“What was it?” Vincent ventured to ask in a 
whisper. 

“Morphia. No need to lower your voice; the 
louder you speak the better.” 

“Is there any hope?” 

“Only in so far as where there is life there al- 
ways is hope. I’ve taken the usual steps — whether 
in time or not I don’t know. The state of the heart 
complicates matters extremely.” 

“Will he not return to consciousness at all? I 
have something to say to him; something I must 
say to him.” 

“If consciousness returns he is probably saved. 
All depends on breaking the coma.” He glanced 
at his watch. “Time for another camphor injec- 
tion.” 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 337 

A few seconds after the injection had been given, 
Dr. Hockins, whose finger was upon the patient’s 
pulse, looked significantly at Vincent ; and Vincent, 
though aware of no change, gazed with breathless 
expectation at the livid face upon the pillow. With 
a breath that was almost a groan the bloodless lips 
parted. Another moment, and the waxen eyelids 
trembled and slightly lifted, only to drop again 
heavily. 

“Now I Now! Pull him up — rub his arms! 
Leave him no peace 1 ” commanded the little doctor, 
with suddenly set teeth. And together they 
dragged the unresponsive body into a sitting 
posture. 

“If you have anything to say to him say It now. 
It may rouse him.” 

“Mr. Harding! Mr. Harding!” almost 
shouted Vincent into the dying man’s ear. “Can 
you hear me?” 

There was another quiver of the eyelids, and 
again they went up, gradually disclosing the pale, 
china-blue Iris within which the shrunken pupils 
showed like the heads of two black pins. Fixedly, 
yet without expression, they fastened themselves 
upon the face bending so close. 

“I am Denholm — Vincent Denholm — ^you re- 
member me? I got your letter — the letter you 
wrote this morning. You understand?” 

He paused, looking eagerly for signs of compre- 
hension; At the word “letter” he had thought to 


338 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

see something like a light passing through the eyes. 
They became more fixed, but also more attentive. 
It was evident that memory was at work. 

“You remember what you told me in your 
letter?” 

There was a faint movement of the head, enough 
to assure Vincent that the stupor had been pierced. 

“You must not die, Mr. Harding; there is no 
use in your dying, and no sense. I have come to 
tell you that I shall marry your daughter the very 
moment she will have me.” 

He paused again — not because he had remem- 
bered Dr. Hockins’s presence, which, indeed, never 
for a moment struck him as an impediment to free 
speech — but because the pale lips were moving. 

“Your career?” came at last in tones which he 
could only catch by bending his ear to them. 

“My career will consist in securing her happi- 
ness; I have no other to pursue, since I mean to re- 
nounce Diplomacy. By to-night my resignation 
will have been handed in.” 

He spoke the words without haste, with an al- 
most superfluous distinctness, calculated to reach 
the sick man’s mind, and partly also his own. For 
until this moment he had taken no clear account 
of the ultimate form adopted by those wild 
thoughts whirling within him during the recent 
drive. He had not yet known the definition of 
the cosmos which had come out of that chaos. For 
the process had been a subconscious one, playing 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 339 

itself out in the depths while the more evident of 
his reasoning powers were busy with the necessity 
of getting to Filbert Gardens before the irretriev- 
able had happened. Now only he knew that, from 
the first, his resolution had really been fixed. Of 
course, he could not be both Irma Harding’s hus- 
band and the representative of his country — that 
much he had grasped from the first. He would 
never expose either her or himself to the possible 
insults which in high places the name of Harding 
might entail. One of the two desires of his soul 
must fall; nor had he hesitated before the issue. 
That rush of admiration for nobility of soul which 
only noble souls can feel had joined hands with 
love to tear down in one moment the wishes of 
years. And in the admiration a little shame mixed. 
Beside her uncalculating sacrifice how small his 
merely personal ambitions looked! Against the 
thought of being beaten in generosity by a mere 
girl his manhood revolted. Did he love her less 
than she loved her father? 

The light-blue eyes with the tiny pin-heads in 
the centre had been torn open now to their full 
width. 

“It is not you who are the obstacle to our happi- 
ness, Mr. Harding, it is I — or rather that stupid 
career of mine. Therefore it must go. My life 
will be full enough — with her — and with some- 
thing else. For listen: you say you have no son 
to clear your name — well, I propose to be that son. 


340 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

and to do what he might have done. I have some 
capital of my own, quite enough to start me. I 
shall go somewhere where work still pays — to 
South Africa, probably — I have a friend there; I 
shall work, and Irma will work with me, I know, 
until the last farthing is paid of the debt you in- 
curred, until not a person remains who can utter 
your name with reproach. Will that satisfy you ?” 

He smiled with the question, pleased and sur- 
prised at the precision with which even the details 
of the plan had already worked themselves out in 
his mind. 

A vibration passed over Harding’s features. The 
blue-nailed hand groped towards Vincent’s; the 
eyes, with suddenly dilated pupils, in which the 
pin-heads had spread to exaggerated patches — a 
sight at which Dr. Hockins frowned unseen — were 
fixed upon the speaker’s face. 

“You will do this?” 

“So help me God, I will! Your honour shall 
be made as bright again as your son himself could 
make it.” 

“Then there is a God, after all.” 

The words died into a sigh — a long, quivering 
and supremely contented sigh. The pale blue eyes 
disappeared once more behind the withered lids, 
rolling heavily downward, like the curtain at the 
end of an act. 

“Go on talking!” said Dr. Hockins, whose at- 
tention had for several minutes been as completely 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 341 

absorbed by the patient’s pulse as though the most 
ordinary discussion in the world were proceeding 
alongside. 

“Mr. Harding! Have you not understood? 
Rouse yourself, in God’s name 1 There is no need 
to die now I” 

A strange smile — something like a smile of com- 
prehension — twitched the thin lips. 

“There is no need to live” — ^Vincent just made 
out the words, and then, bending lower, caught the 
groaning whisper of a name ; but the name was not 
Irma’s. 

“A return of the coma,” grumbled Dr. Hockins. 
“Here, lend a hand again!” 

A minute later he stopped his movements and 
pounced upon the pulse. 

“The corfey, if you please,” quavered Pattie, at 
the door. 

“We do not need the coffee now,” said Dr. 
Hockins, as quietly he laid back the inert form 
upon the pillow. 


CHAPTER XII 


A HOWLING winter wind rattled the windows 
in their sockets; but Irma heard nothing of it. 

Alone in the little box-like drawing-room, with 
the toy-terrier nestling upon her knee — for De 
Wet, mortified vanity notwithstanding, had found 
it wiser to make the best of the situation, much as 
his namesake had on another occasion done before 
him — she sat and pondered. Her thoughts were 
still in the bleak, leafless cemetery where yesterday 
an unhappy man had been laid to rest — her eyelids 
still smarting from the tears that again and ever 
again welled up from her desolate heart. Just at 
first they had refused to flow. The shock of the 
sight awaiting her on her return from Victoria 
station had been too violent for Immediate tears. 
With professional plausibility the story of the over- 
dose had been told by the little doctor and osten- 
tatiously accepted by Irma — in how far believed 
in the doctor himself preferred not to inquire. 
Something, too, had pierced to her understanding 
about another visitor, departed shortly before her 
342 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 343 

return, and she had even guessed at his name, but 
without attention over for puzzling out the pos- 
sible connexion between apparently independent 
facts. It was another point which absorbed her 
thoughts. 

“Pattie, tell me — is it my fault?” she sobbed, 
when at last the tears would come. “You see, if 
I had locked up the medicine he could not have — 
taken the overdose. How can I ever feel happy 
again?” 

The two girls were upon their knees beside 
Irma’s bed, above which hung the little silver cruci- 
fix, and Pattie’s work-worn arms were around 
Irma’s swaying figure. To drag her off to the 
crucifix and almost to force her down upon her 
knees was the only thing which had occurred to 
poor, distracted Pattie; for Pattie, you see, was 
wofully unlearned. She had no store of rational- 
istic arguments wherewith to grapple with a grief 
so wild and so fresh; she could do no more than 
stretch out clasped hands towards the figure of a 
bleeding God, whose very wounds seemed to speak 
of compassion with bleeding hearts. 

It was here, too, that the delivering tears had 
come, mixed up at first with a half-hysterical in- 
clination to laugh; for Pattie’s version of the Our, 
Father, into which she had plunged headlong, 
appealed to other senses besides the sublime. 

“Hour Father, who hart in ’eaven,” scarcely 
sounded familiar at the first hearing; but at the 


344 POME AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

second already Irma had begun to cry, partly for 
company’s sake, for Pattle was gulping hard be- 
tween each word. 

“You’ve got to feel ’appy again!” said Pattle, 
almost fiercely. “You’re one o’ those that s 
planned out for ’applness — that beautiful as you 
are 1 The thing ain’t, rightly speakln’, no business 
of yours. If the pore gentleman was to take an 
overdose, then he’d take an overdose, whether or 
no the medicine were locked away,” she explained, 
with a magnificent disregard of logic. “When the 
hour’s struck nothin’ can stop a thing. It’s what 
I’m allays sayin’ to Mrs. Martin about them cups 
and saucers. ‘I do believe you do it on porpoise,’ 
she says to me, when one o’ the things jumps out 
o’ my hands. And I answers her: ‘I never do 
nothin’ on porpoise, Mrs. Martin; it’s just that 
their hour’s bin and struck.’ And I do believe it’s 
the same with people as with cups.” 

“And yet you cry over the cups and saucers, 
Pattle — you know you do,” argued Irma, to whom 
Pattle as a fatalist was new. 

“That’s only becos’ it’s more ’andy to give ad- 
vice than to foller it,” admitted Pattle, with a sigh. 
“But my hintellergence be against it, all the time. 
If I’d done it on porpoise, then my conscience 
would be stingin’ me to bits, of corse. But you 
can’t do more than your best, can ye? And why 
^jjould I cry becos’ plates are slippery? Oh, you 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 345 

mustn’t go by me, miss ; I’m not one o’ the clever 
ones.” 

And, incredible though It appeared to Irma her- 
self, the robustness of this elementary philosophy 
had helped to dissipate the morbid doubt. If the 
hour had really struck, then to take away the bottle 
would have altered the end as little as had done 
the removal of the revolver — if the end had been 
what she fearfully divined. Could he have gone 
on living after the final disappointment, so patent 
to her watchful eyes — the two painful days just 
passed? You can’t do more than your best — that 
was true, though Pattie had said it. Slowly and 
heavily the orphan’s head began to bow under the 
decree of fate. 

And now she sat in Miss Bennett’s drawing- 
room, alone with De Wet, trying to think out the 
future. Since the evening of the terrible day in 
which Minna — unexpectedly announced — had, al- 
most by main force, carried her off from the house 
of death, this w^as the first moment at which she 
had had the courage even to glance at what was 
coming. A bleak and empty prospect indeed. To 
her mother’s side nothing would induce her to re- 
turn; for “I should tell her one day that she is a 
murderess — I know I should,” she argued — and 
that had better not be. Neither could she stay 
here any longer, despite Miss Bennett’s incredible 
kindness — and this for all sorts of reasons, but 


346 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

chiefly because of the danger of meeting Vincent 
Denholm. For that ordeal she was not sure that 
her strength would suffice. Even to hear his name 
spoken would have shaken her with the regret of 
an impossible happiness; but she had been spared 
even his name — for which circumstance she was 
more grateful to Miss Bennett than for everything 
else. She wondered whether she ought even to 
stay in London. To make a fresh start elsewhere 
might be easier — for them both. How if, after 
exploiting her German, she were now to exploit 
her English? Perhaps in France? She would 
consult her patroness. 

It seemed an answer to her wish that the door 
should open just then. 

“Miss Bennett,” began Irma, without turning, 
resolved to brook no further delay, “I have just 
been thinking ” 

She stopped and glanced fearfully over her 
shoulder, for the step on the carpet was not 
Minna’s. 

The first instinct was the stupid and cowardlyone 
of flight. Indeed, she began by pushing the toy- 
terrier off her knees, as though preparatory to ris- 
ing, yet, after a hasty movement, sank back again, 
with the colour all gone from her face and her eyes 
almost hard. One look at Vincent Denholm had 
told her that, if needs be, he would put himself 
between her and the door. 

“I do not ask you to forgive me,” he was saying 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 347 

gravely, before she had succeeded in quite collect- 
ing her wits. “I know that you will do so when 
you hear the reason of my intrusion. I have a mes- 
sage to deliver from your poor father — ^no, not 
exactly a message, but a communication to make 
concerning his last moments. I do not know 
whether you are aware that I was with him — at 
the end?” 

Incapable of speech, she made a vague move- 
ment with her head. 

“I think you would like to know that he died 
content — I might almost say happy.” 

Her blue eyes fixed him wide and wondering. 

“I was able to take a heavy weight from his 
mind by a promise I gave him. It is right that you 
should know what that promise was. It was the 
promise to clear his name from the stain which 
misfortune has brought upon it.” 

“You know?” asked Irma, precipitately, all the 
blood rushing back to her face. 

“Yes, I know.” 

“But how Oh, I understand.” 

And she thought she did. The question as to 
how much her mother had told him seemed an- 
swered now. And he thought it wisest to let it 
stand at that answer. 

“That is why you went to him?” 

“Yes, that is why; and, by the mercy of God, I 
arrived in time.” 

He stooped suddenly and softly took her hand. 


348 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

“You will help me to clear his name, Irma, will 
you not ?” 

At his touch, despite all after-thoughts, she 
thrilled, yet the passionate trouble on her face 
showed that the after-thought was there. And 
then she asked the same question which Minna 
Bennett as well as her dying father had asked : 

“Your career?” 

“Spare me that word! Pm beginning to hate 
its sound. My career is a thing of the past — ^not 
of the future.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“That I have decided to let my country get out 
of its foreign embroglios without my valuable as- 
sistance, and to be a free man, instead of a public 
servant.” 

For a moment astonishment kept her rigid, then, 
as the full consciousness of what this implied came 
over her, she snatched back her hand. 

“Ah — because of me! I am spoiling your life! 
No, no — it must not be !” 

“It already is. My resignation was handed in a 
week ago. I have no more business inside the 
Foreign Office — in fact, my place is filled already 
— and I have no special business outside of it, 
either, unless you so will it.” 

“Oh!” groaned Irma, her face in her hands, 
yet beating but feebly now against the invading 
flood of happiness. In her heart hope raised its 
head, while in her ear his earnest voice pleaded. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 349 

“And my promise, Irma? Surely you forgot 
my promise I How can I do what I pledged my 
word to do unless you give me the right? Can a 
stranger undertake what a son alone should do?” 

******* 

A little later, while they sat in the twilight, alone 
still, except for the much-disgusted De Wet — for 
in comparison to the seat lately occupied even his 
gem of a basket appeared cold and comfortless — 
Vincent, as at a sudden recollection, put his hand 
in his pocket and drew therefrom something shape- 
less and pink. 

“What,” began Irma, and then laughed softly. 
“Oh, it’s Vindobona.” 

“Is that her name ? She wouldn’t tell it me. I 
put her into my pocket to-day, I believe with some 
idea of restitution; but now it strikes me that de- 
struction will be more appropriate. You told 
me she was the past, and we have only to do with 
the future.” 

Rising, he went over to the fireplace and dropped 
the little pink bundle into the coals. Together 
they watched the?= thing which stood for the Past 
flare up and fall to ashes — gaudy spangles, black 
stains and all. 

Then, after another long silence, came Irma’s 
hushed question: 

“His last words — you heard them — ^what were 
they?” 


350 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

Vincent’s arm held her a little closer. 

“One of the last things he said was, ‘There is no 
need to live,’ and he smiled so extraordinary a 
smile as he said it. I had told him that there was 
no need to die, since all would be well; and that 
was his answer. And after that — at the very end 
— he spoke a name.” 

“What name?” 

“It sounded like Isabella — I could not be sure.” 

Irma fell silent again. A little more of the 
weight had slipped from her heart. Whatever 
part the discovery of her love had played in the 
last act of the tragedy, her woman’s instinct told 
her that it was but a subordinate one. Hencefor- 
ward she would at least be spared the consciousness 
of her happiness being built upon a grave. Pattie 
had been right when she had said that it was no 
business of hers, rightly speaking. 

And presently even the details of that happiness 
began to unroll. 

“You will not mind going away far — very far 
with me?” Vincent had asked, and she answered 
with a sigh of deliverance : 

“Oh, as far away as possible from all the old 
things!” 

Then he spoke of South Africa, and of the plan 
already formed and much elaborated during the 
past inactive week — of turning his capital to ac- 
count there. 

“It’s a country flowing with milk and honey. 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 351 

from all accounts. Of course, I know nothing about 
obtaining the milk or collecting the honey, but I’ve 
a friend out there who has been at it for years. 
We’ll make him pick us a likely bit of land, and, 
of course, it is he who must manage it for us. I 
told him all about it by last mail. Poor old Bob ! 
I believe he’ll jump straight out of his skin when 
he gets my letter. The last time I saw him he told 
me that to get under an English master would 
crown his wishes. I shall tell you his story another 
time. Capital, brains, and a free hand — that was 
all a man wanted, he said, to make a pile over 
there.” 

Again they sat silent, while the wind rattled 
unheeded at the windows, and the glow of the fire 
grew brighter in the darkening room. 

“And another thing he told me on that occasion 
was that to have a plain job cut out for you and 
to feel that you can do it was worth a good deal. 
I’ve got my job cut out now, and I believe I can 
do it. Not much pomp and circumstance, I sus- 
pect, about growing peaches and breeding ostriches, 
but a good deal more hard cash, I should say, than 
about composing treaties.” 

He laughed happily, then fell into drawing pic- 
tures of the unknown land and of its exotic beau- 
ties, to which she listened with the wondering smile 
of a child hearkening to a fairy tale. And under 
his words the fairy tale glowed, and with it his 
own heart, as it had not been able to glow during 


352 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

the difficult days just passed. For that there had 
been too many threads to tear, too many bonds to 
sever. The inevitable pangs could not shake the 
fixed resolve, yet they had been there all the same. 
But whatever regrets had assailed him in the blank 
intervals between the two lives, while common de- 
cency kept him out of her presence, were now van- 
ished — drowned in the blue of her eys. 

* * sK * * * 

“Spoiling his life?” said Minna Bennett at a late 
hour that night — that intrinsically confidential hour 
at which dressing-gowns flow and hair-brushes are 
in play. “Put that ridiculous idea out of your 
head, once for all! You’re snaking it for him, I 
tell you.” 

“How?” asked the incredulous Irma, who had 
just been airing her scruples. 

“Quite simple. Nothing more organically un- 
fitted for the Artful Dodger than Vincent can be 
imagined — and a diplomat is just a duly accredited 
variety of the article, you know — ^yet the mere 
necessities of the case would have made an Artful 
Dodger of him in time — at the expense of his char- 
acter. For people of his priggish devotion to truth 
— and with Vincent it amounts to an idiosyncrasy 
— the diplomatic mountain is a slippery one to 
climb. As likely as not he would have come a nasty 
moral cropper.” 

Here Minna was interrupted by the necessity of 
sneezing, a very natural necessity, considering the 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 353 

time she had spent in her unheated bedroom that 
afternoon. 

“He thinks he is happy now only because he 
loves you, but it is also a little because he knows 
that an inner conflict is ended. To my mind, it is 
not your father’s honour alone that he is saving 
by renouncing what men call ‘honours’ — if 
honour means being true to oneself. I have been 
hoping for something like this for years. Ah, my 
dear, you cannot imagine how grateful I am to 
you — and how glad!” 

As a proof of which Minna’s good-night em- 
brace left a strangely moist feeling upon Irma’s 
cheek. 

* * * * * 3!£ He 

But the end of Vincent’s ordeals was not yet. 
For several days more he was to go about remorse- 
fully asking himself whether a charge of at least 
moral manslaughter would not darken the rest of 
his days, whether the spectre of his stricken grand- 
mother were not to haunt all future nights — for 
shocks of this description are not easily weathered 
at eighty-two. 

When, with infinite precautions, it was broken 
to Lady Aurelia that Vincent had not only refused 
the Berlin secretaryship, but simultaneously sent in 
his resignation, she had, after a brief but awful 
pause, vindicated her perspicacity by putting that 
same question which a Roman Catholic Archbishop 
is said to have put to a priest of his diocese who 


354 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

had just employed ten minutes in elaborately set- 
ting forth the conscientious grounds on which he 
found himself forced to renounce communion with 
Rome : — 

“What’s her name?” 

The name, being presently forthcoming, sent 
her into the nearest approach to hysterics of which 
her wiry nerves were capable, coupled with the 
loudly proclaimed intention of getting straight into 
her grave, and the earnest request of being ac- 
corded room to fall. Pending the grave, she got 
into her bed meanwhile, after having boxed the 
ears of the handiest victim, who happened to be 
her maid, and — so it was reported in the servants’ 
hall — refraining only from scratching out the cor- 
responding pair of eyes because, owing to the su- 
perior nimbleness of youthful limbs, she had been 
unable to reach them. 

Then for days a complete debacle reigned in the 
orderly existence of the house in Eaton Place, at 
whose door the family doctor’s brougham was to 
be seen night and morning, and in whose hushed 
chambers Chrissie and Cissy discussed the' awful 
turn of affairs in whispers, and occasionally in 
tears; though it was afterwards remembered that 
Chrissie’s eyes, at least, had never actually been 
red, and that the deepest moans over the destruc- 
tion of the family hopes, uttered by her sister, had 
failed to depress her completely. Poor Sir Chris- 
tian, whose fluffy white hair seemed inclined to fly 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 355 

straight off his head before this blast of adversity, 
and who went about quoting examples of just such 
inappropriate matches as this, of which he had 
taken cognisance either in his “Roman” or his 
“St. Petersburg” time, was little attended to in 
these days. It was almost the solitary occasion in 
his life that, being asked for something — that is 
(as a mere matter of form), by Vincent for his 
consent — he had not unhesitatingly acquiesced. 

“But, of course, he’s only got to see her again 
in order to say, ‘Certainly, my dear — just as you 
like !’ ” groaned Lady Aurelia under her bed- 
clothes — a supposition which subsequent events 
corroborated. 

For nearly a week Vincent walked the streets 
with at least a modified edition of the mark of 
Cain upon him. It was the Conte Galliani whom 
he had to thank for the removal of that mark; for 
if the Conte had not chosen this exact juncture for 
coming out with a declaration, at which Chrissie 
did her best to look decorously surprised, there 
seemed every chance that the Dowager would have 
made good her promise by using her bed as a mere 
stepping-stone to her grave. 

But when “Lady Mummy” heard that her eldest 
granddaughter’s hand had been formally demanded 
in marriage by the brilliant young attache^ she pro- 
ceeded abruptly to reconsider the position. It 
seemed, after all, that there was something still 


3s6 pomp and circumstance 

worth living for ; since, apart from his evident abil- 
ities, the Conte was a parti in every sense of the 
word, lacking neither the money nor the connex- 
ions likely to give him many desirable “lifts.” 

Accordingly, less than three days later, Lady 
Aurelia’s lemon-coloured face — ^looking now like a 
lemon that has been very badly squeezed — ^reap- 
peared in the Eaton Place drawing-room. She 
could not rest until she had pressed to her heart 
the new hope of the f arnily ; the old one having, by 
this time, actually received a contemptuous sort 
of assurance of toleration, if not of forgiveness. 
As for persuasion, she had not so much as at- 
tempted it — another proof of perspicacity. 

“So you have decided that to live in the country 
and keep a trap is the proper way of filling up ex- 
istence?” was the greeting extended to the prodi- 
gal, together with an indescribable glance from the 
wickedly black little eyes. 

To which Vincent — very much on the grin — 
replied that it all depended upon whom you had 
to drive in the trap. For half an hour he gladly 
endured remarks of a similar scathing description ; 
so thankful to be spared a possible self-reproach 
that his grandmother’s remarks appeared to him 
almost as “amioosing” as they did to the Conte — ■ 
a state of affairs which was distinctly hard on 
“Lady Mummy.” Unable to get a rise out of the 
son, she perforce fell back upon the father. But 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 357 

so much elation did there lie in the air, so univer- 
sal was the atmosphere of peace and good-will, that 
even the “Vol-au-vent” — no, the “Caviare Con- 
ference” was produced in vain to-day. 


EPILOGUE 


For the fourth time within an hour Bob Ken- 
dall went back into the house, in order to assure 
himself that the table-cloth and the napkins were 
still in their places, and that the salt-cellar had not 
been forgotten; also to try and make up his mind 
whether the rocking-chairs looked better facing 
each other or the window. On the whole, he in- 
clined to the window, on account of the magnifi- 
cence of the view, filled by the swelling lines of the 
veldt and bounded by the blue-grey fortress of the 
mountains. On the other hand, again, there were 
reasons to suppose that the occupants would prefer 
the look of each other’s faces to the finest pano- 
rama a-going; in which case 

Having given little shoves to the chairs and little 
pulls to the white calico curtains draping the win- 
dows, Bob went out again on to a verandah littered 
with wood-shavings, and, shading his eyes with 
his hand, stared hard in one direction. Upon a 
boulder-strewn knoll at some hundred paces’ dis- 
tance a black, immovable figure was to be seen, 
sharply silhouetted against the glorious blue of the 
sky. It was at this sentinel figure that Bob gazed 
358 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 359 

expectantly — to turn away again presently with a 
restive groan and attempt to cheat impatience by an 
aimless but vaguely beatific stroll round the prem- 
ises. 

The opening era was altogether so far superior 
to the one lately closed as almost to suffice for the 
happiness of one whose demands upon happi- 
ness had never been great. In default of getting 
his own ‘‘little girl,” to know that Vincent had got 
his was almost the next best thing on the list — that, 
and the English master sighed for so long — and 
that master his own old Vin ! What wonder that 
his weather-beaten face, under the broad straw hat 
which clothed him so much better than a “chimney- 
pot” ever could do, should wear a grin which 
threatened to become chronic? 

Add to this the consciousness of not having 
failed in the task imposed. He had done well for 
Vincent, and he knew it. His prophetic eye, sweep- 
ing round what was as yet but a builder’s yard with 
only the dwelling-house under roof, with the out- 
buildings mere carcasses of wall, with stacks of 
bricks, sheets of corrugated iron, and ponds of 
liquid mortar making havoc of the ground be- 
tween, saw it all as it would presently be. The 
establishment was not even to be described as 
“new” — far more truly as “future.” The word 
w^as writ large over its untidy yard, its pegged-out 
garden space, its roughly cut approach, and over 
the provisional pen above whose walls of loose 


36 o pomp and circumstance 

stones two prize ostriches craned their long necks. 
But to Bob’s experienced optimism the future was 
almost the present. With his mind’s eye he could 
see the peach and orange trees that would make 
the landscape perfect by filling out the bare fore- 
ground; and already he calculated the progeny of 
that feathered couple in the pen. 

Having bestowed a “mealy” upon each of the 
future patriarchs (and all but got his fingers bitten 
for his pains) , Bob decided to take another look at 
the sitting-room, which, together with the adjoin- 
ing bedroom, represented the only inhabitable 
spaces of the house. 

All right there; the salt-cellar still in its place, 
and the napkins, strangely enough, not having 
played any pranks in his absence. After another 
moment of deep consideration he turned the rock- 
ing-chairs decisively towards the window, through 
which the glorified panorama of the sunset had 
caught his eye, gave a tug to the bunch, or, more 
properly speaking, bush, of mimosa which occupied 
the centre of the table — Bob’s idea of table decora- 
tion — and once more went out for another consul- 
tation of the sentinel. For the how many’th time 
the manoeuvre was being repeated it would be hard 
to say ; nor was this time the last. It was just when 
he had finally, and this time irrevocably, decided 
that the chairs had, after all, better be turned to- 
wards each other, that, hearing a shout, he made 


POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 361 

for the verandah, in time to see the knoll bare and 
the black figure racing towards him. 

“At last I” he breathed into his big beard, his big 
heart already in his mouth. 

Then, as he got ready to wave his hat : 

“Upon my word, it’s almost as good as though 
the little girl herself were coming!” 

But at that he caught back his breath with a 
feeling very close to self-reproach. 

“No — not quite!” 


THE END 




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